


Ghost in the Machine

by idigtheburied



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Androids, Cybernetics, M/M, Nanorobotics, Pining, Season 1 Shenanigans, Slow Burn, Virtual Reality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:02:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 49,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25259653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idigtheburied/pseuds/idigtheburied
Summary: "...Technology will strip us of what it means to be human, and leave us something alien and cold. We will press a button that in a moment will destroy everything we have ever been...” (MAG 134)The Magnus Institute in London is at the forefront of cybernetic enhancements. Jonathan Sims, former patient and current medical archivist, is its most valuable employee.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 166
Kudos: 190





	1. Origins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A cw for non-graphic references to blood and pain related to heavy metal toxicity / poisoning.

The office of Elias Bouchard was clean and impersonal. Jon categorized the elements coalescing to form this space: white walls, gray carpeting, black lacquer furniture and empty shelves. Behind his desk hung qualifications in tasteful frames: medical degrees from the University of Oxford. Jon’s gaze refocused on Dr. Bouchard who smiled at him in the pleasant way doctors were trained to do. Dark blond hair carefully cut and styled, streaked silver in a distinguished way Jon did not think he would ever achieve, aquiline nose and thin lips, remote gray eyes. An immaculate white coat hung over the back of his chair and he wore a well-pressed white shirt and a navy tie.

“Mr. Sims,” Dr. Bouchard greeted him, “I understand you are a referral from Dr. Cane?”

“Yes.” Jon curled trembling fingers into the fabric of his trousers, a side effect of the metal accumulating in the soft tissues of his body. He had suffered from headaches throughout university, attributed to dehydration, lack of sleep, a poor diet. Irritability, anxiety, and insomnia preceded muscle spasms, cardiomyopathy, and abdominal pain. That he should be so intimately aware of this slow (and frankly inconvenient) degradation of his soma gave him a certain introspection at the ripe age of twenty-seven.

“What brings you in today?” Jon glanced down at the smooth white tablet on the desk that undoubtedly contained his information. “I’ve read your file,” Dr. Bouchard answered the unspoken question smoothly, “But would like to hear from you. Medical statements can be rather dry.”

“Very well,” Jon paused, lips pursing at the swooping threat of dizziness. Only after it passed did he speak, raising his gaze to meet the patient face of Dr. Bouchard. “I suppose I should start at the beginning.”

“If you like.”

“I was badly injured in a car accident when I was eight,” his mother had died, and Jon very nearly did as well, “I was given a nanorobotic treatment for internal bleeding and a crushed left hand,” Dr. Cane referred to the nanobots as spiders, so-named for their spindly, many-legged shape, injected into his bloodstream where they released clotting agents to stymie the bleeding, building fibrous webs to scaffold the healing, integrating with the tissue. “The nanorobots were not extracted after the initial injection, and have since fused with my soft tissue, where they are breaking down.” Gold and copper had phased out of usage for their potential toxicity, but twenty years ago it was cutting edge.

Dr. Bouchard swept his finger along the screen on his desk. “This is where your HMT diagnosis comes from?”

Jon nodded. “I was… negligent when the symptoms first appeared,” he disliked hospitals and had avoided annual check-ups since leaving home for university at the age of nineteen. He attempted to self-medicate for several years. Then he noticed the swelling and the blood. Georgie pressured him into going to a clinic, where he was told he should see a specialist. “As a result, the damage is… significant,” to his kidneys, his liver, his heart, perhaps even his brain, “Dr. Cane suggested an aggressive second round of nano to repair the damage and dispose of the detritus,” what remained of the now-defunct ‘spiders’ that were slowly poisoning him. “I would prefer an alternative, if possible.”

Dr. Bouchard gave him a considering look. “May I ask why?”

“I don’t care for spiders,” Jon hedged his answer with a wan smile. There was nothing about that experience that he enjoyed, bound up as it was in his childhood trauma, and it instilled in him such a visceral distaste for nanorobotics, those microscopic arachnids inside his skin. “I am willing to take the risk on something new… assuming my condition is not beyond the scope of what you do here.”

Dr. Bouchard smiled at him, “Rest assured, Mr. Sims, few things are beyond my scope.”

Jon frowned at the pointed silence and attempted to parse it. “Will it qualify for NHS treatment?”

“I’m not concerned about payment,” the doctor replied, fingers sliding across the screen in front of him, “You are familiar with what the Magnus Institute does, I trust. Yours would be a long-term course of treatment.”

Jon furrowed his brow at the conversational shift, fatigue cottoning his reaction. “Are you asking me if I’m aware that your treatment would replace my organs?” The Magnus Institute developed cybernetic enhancements, the design, patent and marketing of biomechatronic parts. It was the first medical research facility in the U.K. to successfully design and build an external pacemaker in 1951, six months after the rudimentary (and unfortunate) experiments of Canadian electrical engineer, John Hopps. The institute’s most profitable enhancement of the last ten years was its bionic eye, the world’s first successful mimicry of the neural code the retina used to communicate with the brain. It was fascinating work.

“It is more than simple organ transplant,” Dr. Bouchard replied, skimming over the thought, “To use your spider metaphor, there is an extensive webbing that binds that nanotechnology to your body. We would remove all of it,” not only kidneys, liver, and heart but tissue, bone and muscle, even his blood would need to be cleaned to scrub the toxins out of his system, “There is a significant chance you would not survive such a procedure. And if you do, on a conservative estimate, forty percent of your body will consist of biomechatronic components.”

“That is an acceptable risk.”

Dr. Bouchard leaned forward with polite interest. “And your humanity? Your sense of self? Do you believe that is an 'acceptable risk'? It is not uncommon for patients to experience a... crisis of identity when faced with a significant loss of biological mass.”

Jon frowned again. “Will I still have a brain that is intact and recognizably my own?”

“Yes.”

“Then the question is not medically relevant. It is ideological.” The question: am I still human? Jon was too exhausted to philosophize on the essence of man this morning, but he understood the rationale behind this line of questioning – not only a matter of institute liability, although he was sure there would be many waivers to sign. There were purists who subscribed to the notion that technology was antithetical to humanity. Others believed that nanotechnology supported the organic body whereas cybernetics replaced it, making the former a “more human” choice. 

Dr. Bouchard smiled. “Forgive me. It is the prevailing debate in our line of work.”

“I’m sure it is,” Jon sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, “Are you trying to talk me out of this?”

“Not at all,” the doctor assured him blandly, “But it is important that you understand what you will be consenting to.” Jon had never received such instruction from Dr. Cane. He assumed it was a conversation she had with his grandmother, once upon a time. “We will admit you for six months, during which time you will be treated by our staff at St. George’s. The procedure will not be easily reversible should you change your mind.”

Jon’s shoulders tightened. Six months was longer than he anticipated having to stay at a hospital, and he wondered whether NHS would cover the full cost. Jon had quit his job with the worsening of his condition, and for the past year he had scraped by through remote work as a translator, transcriber, and editor. His saving grace was a proclivity for languages. It would be simple enough to release his current clients and pay someone to box up the contents of his flat. He wondered if Georgie knew anyone who would be willing to sublet until August.

“Mr. Sims?”

He refocused his gaze on the doctor, who studied him with an inscrutable expression. “Yes,” he groped for the appropriate response and settled on a quiet affirmation. “I understand.”

* * *

Dr. Bouchard gave him one week to consider his options, and during that time he met with the institute staff, a psychologist, a mechanical engineer, a surgeon. They spoke to him about risks and methods, maintenance and warranty of his new organs, and the changes he could expect to his quality of life. Jon signed the appropriate paperwork as directed by Dr. Bouchard and fasted the day prior to his admission to St. George’s.

He remembered very little of the six months that followed, during which time he was sedated or heavily drugged, numb and delirious. He did not remember eating or drinking or using the facilities. He _did_ remember having the catheters (plural, unfortunately) and feeding tube removed three days ago, when he was relocated from St. George’s to the Magnus Institute for the remainder of his convalescence. It was not a pleasant experience, but the discomfort was novel and fleeting. Sharp and invasive, yes, with a lingering soreness that bothered him, but it calibrated differently from the pain Jon was accustomed to. He was used to cramping that curled his body into a fetal position, tightness that made him vomit, swollen headaches, and needles in his joints. He had forgotten what it felt like not to want to scratch his skin off and drag out the throbbing, knotted ache with his bare hands. In place of that once relentless pain were thin, puckered scars on his torso, arms and legs that he decided to keep, eschewing the opportunity to consult with a plastic surgeon on retainer with the Institute.

Jon blinked up at the speckled white tiles of the ceiling, gaze sliding along the glow of fluorescent lighting. There was a quiet tap at his door preceding the entry of a man he did not recognize, carrying a thin gray tablet and a pitcher of water. He wore green scrubs and had a round freckled face, eyes widening behind his glasses.

“Oh,” the stranger greeted him with a breathless laugh, “You’re awake!”

 _An astute observation_ , Jon thought. His throat was dry, so he did not bother responding. He studied the, hmm, medical student, perhaps, he didn’t seem self-possessed enough to pass for either a nurse or a doctor. He couldn’t have been much younger than Jon but he looked lost.

“Sorry,” he blurted out with an embarrassed shake of his head, stepping into the room and shutting the door, “Um, I- I’m Martin Blackwood. I’m supposed to, er, well, I brought you some water.” Sliding the tablet into a transparent wall mount, Martin carried over the pitcher in both hands, setting it down on a small white stand next to Jon’s bed. “And the cups… cups are… ah!” he muttered to himself, scanning the room for a moment before he spotted the black cup on a table in the corner of the room, next to a bouquet of blush peonies.

Jon frowned at the flowers. He didn’t remember when those were brought in, or by whom. He was still puzzling out the fragments of the past three days when Martin rejoined him, hovering over the bed with an uncertain expression. The proximity set his teeth on edge.

“W-would you… I mean,” Martin stammered, pitch modulating with a nervous smile, “Do you… want a drink? It feels kind of presumptuous to pour it without asking first.”

Jon tilted his head with a flat look. Martin smiled at him, a tremulous twitch of the lips, poured the water without managing to spill it and handing the cup to Jon. His fingers brushed against the smooth latex of Martin’s gloved hands, and he muttered a hoarse, “thank you,” under his breath before taking a sip, then draining the cup in two successive swallows. He cradled the cup in both hands.

“So…” Martin ventured carefully, “How are you feeling? Are you hungry? Can I get you anything?”

 _Some tea would be appreciated_. Jon shook his head and asked, “Are you a medical student?”

“Me?” Martin laughed, a surprised burst of sound, “Oh, no, definitely not. Couldn’t afford that and even if I could, I don’t have much of a head for, er, science. I’m just a general assistant-slash-aide-slash-caregiver.”

 _Jack of all trades, master of none._ “And you are wearing medical scrubs…?”

“Ah, I have to,” Martin tugged at the hem of his green shirt self-consciously, “When meeting with patients, even patients like you who probably can’t get sick on account of being… um, well, a _cyborg_.”

“I see.” Jon’s voice was soft, thinly veiling his growing distaste at Martin’s hapless enthusiasm. “If you are finished bumbling your way through asinine observations, Mr. Blackwood,” he had always hated the term ‘cyborg,’ both for being a portmanteau and for evoking the historical fetishizing of cybernetic organisms in popular culture. “I would like you to leave now.” He noted with some satisfaction the surprise in Martin’s face, the crumpling realization that he had offended Jon, before he fumbled through an apology and exited the room.

Jon leaned back against his hospital bed, tension unspooling with each measured breath. Minutes passed in silence before he decided to get up. He moved slowly out of habit, catalogueing the soft crack of his neck and lower back, the distinct lack of pain or soreness in his body. He slid to the edge of the bed, bare feet touching white tile floor, and stood. The hospital gown swung into his calves, loose around his shoulders, and he found what passed for slippers tucked under the bed. Sliding into the paper-thin ‘shoes’, Jon shuffled to the bathroom and turned on the light, gazing critically at himself in the mirror. Six months of growth resulted in a thick, unwieldy beard and hair tangled past his shoulders. He reached for a comb on the edge of the sink and did his best to tame it. He even plaited it before realizing he didn’t have a rubberband to hold it in place.

Jon brushed his teeth, washed his face, and longed for a razor. He was growing to trust his hands again, and his reflexes were better than they used to be. He was sure he could manage to shave his own face without dire consequences. Who should he speak to about this?

The answer came in the form of three short knocks on the door, and Jon stepped out of the bathroom with a disgruntled expression. The sound was less tentative than Martin Blackwood’s barely-there tap, but Jon still braced himself for another onslaught of cyborg-gawking and irrelevant commentary when he grumbled, “come in.”

“Hello, Mr. Sims.” Dr. Bouchard stepped into the room, dressed in crisp, cold colors beneath his clean white coat. He looked no different from the man he met six months ago. Dr. Bouchard’s gaze slid from the empty hospital bed to the upright Jon. “Good to see you on your feet again.”

“Yes,” Jon agreed, clearing his throat with a distracted rub of his chest, “The physical therapy has been helpful.” It was ongoing during his six months stay, and the therapist had continued to visit since his arrival at the Institute. He did wonder if it was a placebo, designed to make him feel more human. There was virtually no weakness or loss of muscle mass in his body for having been bed-bound for six months, which he knew to be rare. Less rare, perhaps, for someone whose muscle mass consisted (in part, if not largely) of inorganic compounds.

“It is helpful,” Dr. Bouchard agreed pointedly, as if reading the doubt in Jon’s face. “I’ve come to discuss next steps.”

“Alright.” Jon crossed the room to the bed, sitting down on the edge of the mattress in his ill-fitted hospital gown, slippers on his feet. It would be good to go home, he supposed, to talk to Georgie, but he knew the moment he stepped out of the Institute what followed would be a tiresome process: unpack his belongings from storage, haggle with his subletter or find a new flat, take stock of his savings and resume his job search.

“I understand you resigned your position at the National Gallery in January of last year due to health issues.” Dr. Bouchard paused for confirmation, which he received in the form of Jon’s bewildered expression, “Were you intending to resume it?”

“I…” It was a good question. “Honestly, I haven’t given it much thought.” Jon wondered why his doctor would be interested in his source of income, and his heart sank. “Why? Is there a problem with my coverage?” He worried this might happen as the Magnus Institute was not affiliated with the NHS, resulting in a gray area in terms of who would be treating him at St. George’s and whether the procedures would be covered. Some of it was highly experimental and thus not incorporated into current legislation. At the time, Jon had been given every reassurance, but he couldn’t recall if he had signed anything to that effect or if it was simply a verbal agreement. Surely, he would not have been that stupid…

“Not at all, Mr. Sims,” Dr. Bouchard assured him, “Your treatment has been paid in full.”

“Ah.” The words stilled the anxious spiral of dread growing in Jon’s mind, and he swallowed. “That is good to hear.”

“Quite.” The doctor’s gaze sharpened as he redirected the conversation, “My reason for raising the issue of your employment is this: there is an opening at this institute, and I believe you would be a good fit. If I recall correctly,” Dr. Bouchard either did not notice or chose to ignore Jon’s nonverbal response, interlacing his fingers, “You have a master’s degree from the University of London.”

“In history,” Jon replied haltingly, “Hardly the equivalent of a medical degree, Dr. Bouchard. I don’t see what I could offer to your institute.” He had briefly considered pursuing a doctorate but his health issues conflated with the prospect of student debt dissuaded him from applying.

“How fortunate the position is not in Research and Development,” Dr. Bouchard replied mildly, “We are hiring archival staff under the administrative purview of our medical library. You would be a good candidate, I think.” Jon’s indecision must have shown on his face, because Dr. Bouchard promptly stood and drew a business card out of his back pocket. “Consider it, Mr. Sims. I don’t expect you to make a decision today. After you’ve been discharged and had some time to recover, do give me a call if you’re interested and we’ll arrange an interview.” This was all Dr. Bouchard said on the matter, before shifting the topic of discussion to Jon’s impending release. Shortly after, he excused himself. 

A nurse dropped off a disposable razor with dinner, and Jon spent the evening on the phone with Georgie. Two days later, she picked him up from the Institute – cleanshaven and dressed in his own freshly laundered clothes – and regaled him with stories of the Admiral and his new beau, the Abyssinian in the flat across the hall. That evening they ordered takeaway and sat on the sofa together, talking. Well, Georgie talked. Jon listened. He thought about Dr. Bouchard’s offer. It would be a far cry from curating Greek art of the Cycladic era – assuming he decided to apply for the position and somehow received an offer despite being vastly underqualified – but perhaps that was part of the appeal.

Two weeks later, he contacted Dr. Bouchard to set up an interview.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am playing fast and loose with the technology, but imagine a world similar to the one we live in with advanced medical technology (50 years ahead of where we are). Much of what I am referencing tech-wise is currently happening out in the world of cybernetics (IBM, UCSD), in its earliest stages. That being said, I am not an expert and this is not my primary field of study, so please suspend your disbelief. If you're interested in talking through some of the theoretical components of the biotech mentioned (or anything else TMA related), please contact me on tumblr: idigtheburied.tumblr.com. Thanks for reading!


	2. First Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon's first weeks at the Institute.

“Is your doctor allowed to be your boss?” Georgie braced an elbow on the round table between them, before she reached for a slice of garlic bread and split it down the middle, sweeping one end along the edge of her pasta bowl, “Because that seems like a weird conflict of interest.”

“Dr. Bouchard-” who insisted on a first-name basis the day he hired Jon, 'as there was no need to be formal now that they were coworkers,' “ _Elias_ is not my doctor. And I’m not sure he was ever directly involved in my treatment. It was more of a general oversight.”

Georgie shrugged in response, eyeing his plate of spaghetti. “Eat,” she insisted with a waggle of her fork tines, and Jon obediently spooled a mouthful of pasta onto his tines. “He seems sketchy, that’s all I’m saying.”

Jon frowned at her. “In what way?”

“I’ve seen his picture. He’s a rich white man running a medical institute.”

Jon sighed. “Insightful.”

Georgie raised a brow, silver studs catching in the light. “You know I’m right.”

He shifted in his seat, a tacit acknowledgment of the words. But he suspected that racial disparities in the healthcare system - while painfully relevant - was not the underlying reason for this conversation. “You don’t think I’m qualified for the job, do you?”

Georgie’s fork nearly missed her mouth, and she tilted her head in an unbearably sympathetic way. Jon looked away. “Your words, not mine,” she said, “You are very smart, Jon, and pretentious about it which I’m sure those institute people would love,” she smiled at the indignant pinch of his brows, the defensive stiffening of his shoulders, “They’d be lucky to have you, obviously. But how much time did you spend in the museum archives at the Gallery? I mean, _really_?” She fiddled with the metal straw in her glass for a few seconds, “I just… don’t like that place.”

“Georgie…”

“It sounds like one of those internet scams, you know, where they lure young people in with fake modeling jobs or rent-free apartments, then drug them and harvest their organs- oh wait,” she held up a finger, “They definitely already did that to you.”

Jon gave her an exasperated look. “There is no part of that scenario that applies to me.” Well, he supposed he _was_ drugged, and his organs _were_ removed, but he consented, and those organs were replaced. "It is not an exaggeration to say the Institute saved my life."

Georgie almost relented. “I’m grateful they were able to help you- I _really_ am, Jon, you look so much better,” she reached across the table and squeezed his forearm gently, “But I’m worried about you. You don’t have a lot of common sense and you… you don’t like disappointing people.”

Jon scowled, face growing warm. “That seems like an unfair generalization,” he ground out between his teeth.

“I don’t mean it in a bad way,” Georgie insisted, “It’s that academic training. They grind self-advocacy out of you.”

“I’m sorry, did we not meet at Balliol?” Jon drawled, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, but only one of us finished and said, ‘I want to do that again but worse.’ Who was that person?” Georgie tapped her chin, feigning deep thought on the subject of graduate school, “Was it me? I don’t think it was me.”

“Yes, fine. You’ve made your point.” Jon could admit that he struggled to maintain a work-life balance in London. His health worsened – likely due to stress – and he repeatedly put his research above his relationships. It was part of the reason they broke up.

“Look,” Georgie softened, “The bottom line is- I don’t want you doing this job because you feel like you _owe_ them or something.”

Jon shook his head, swallowing around the lump in his throat. “I want to work there,” he assured her, “For me.” If he stepped back and analyzed his rationale for interviewing and accepting the position, he couldn’t say it was out of a sense of obligation. He had no frame of reference for a body unaltered by biotechnology, and now he felt stronger than he had in years. Was it the result of replacing a quarter of his organs with cybernetics, or the simple fact that he could walk down a street without doubling over in pain? Jon had no intention of going back to university for another degree at this point in his life. The Institute was the closest he would ever be to the research that made him what he was. He wanted to understand it.

Georgie was generous enough to let the topic go, and the rest of the evening was spent discussing her podcast, before Jon bid the Admiral good night, declined the offer of tea or coffee, and walked home.

* * *

The next day, Jon fussed with the collar of his white button-down, untucking and retucking the shirt into his trousers until the lines were smoother. He plaited his hair in a tight braid (he wondered if he ought to cut it, but there was no mention of ‘workplace dress’ in his contract), agonized over the correct tie, and decided to bring his blazer. Security required him to surrender his mobile phone for the day. A woman named Rosie greeted him in the lobby and remarked on how ‘smart’ he looked which instantly made Jon self-conscious. She walked him through the completion of paperwork, the activation of his Institute-approved mobile, and the implantation of his RFID chip in a small laboratory on the second floor.

In lieu of ID cards, he was told, all employees of the Magnus Institute had subcutaneous chips – the size of a grain of rice – injected into the skin between their thumb and forefinger. It was not unconventional to microchip employees, touted as a convenient way to access secure buildings, pay for services, log onto computers, notify emergency personnel of medical information, et cetera. Jon agreed to the implant which took less than thirty seconds to insert, accompanied by a minor pinch and very little blood. He did make a mental note _not_ to tell Georgie about this.

“I’m not sure if Elias told you, but he has assigned three research assistants to the archive.” Rosie swept her hand across a biometric lock to press the -1 button on the lift panel. The doors opened into a small waiting area. There were two plastic chairs pushed against the wall, a bathroom and a supply closet. Jon had seen the archive once before, accompanying Elias on a tour during lunch. He hadn’t met any of the employees. There was a break room with a small kitchenette, a small private office that now belonged to him, and the archive itself. It was a large room with a dozen cantilever steel bookshelves, each row filled with unmarked boxes, loose papers, files and tapes alongside computer models of the last ten years, tablets and cords, a disorganized maelstrom of the analogue and the digital. There were three desks, two of which were unoccupied.

“Knock, knock,” Rosie called out to them cheerfully, and as soon as the researchers turned to face him, Jon realized he had overdressed. He reviewed the curricula vitae he’d looked over at Elias’ request, matching faces to applicable skillsets. Tim Stoker – anthropology with a marketing background – straddled an office chair in black corduroy trousers and a striped shirt, and he saluted Jon in greeting. Sasha James – computer science and engineering – perched on the edge of the desk. She wore a turtleneck and purple framed glasses, long black braids gathered into a ponytail. She offered a dimpled smile that seemed genuine and he returned it weakly, a barely-there upturn of his lips. Then there was Martin Blackwood who, according to his CV, had a degree in physiology. Although he was not wearing scrubs, Jon remembered his face.

_What is he doing here?_

“…I’ll leave you all to get acquainted,” Rosie touched Jon’s arm, alerting him to the fact that he had ignored most of what she said in her introductions beyond the exchange of names and now would be left to fend for himself, “Don’t hesitate to give me a call if you need something.” Rosie did not work on the archival floor but above it, in a warm, well-lit lobby. Jon managed to acknowledge the words with a stiff nod. Silence stretched between them, disrupted by the distant _ping!_ of the lift. Tim rocked back and forth on his chair, smirking, while Martin stared very determinedly at the screen of a slim gray tablet on his desk. Jon wanted nothing more than to turn around and leave.

“So, is it Jon or Jonathan?” Sasha broke the silence, pushing away from Martin’s desk to approach him.

“Jon is fine. Hello.” She stuck out her hand to shake his and Jon grasped it briefly. There was a pause before he offered a meaningless platitude for lack of anything better to say, “I look forward to working together.”

“That’s a relief, boss,” Tim chimed in, spinning his chair around, “Because _some_ people were worried it might be awkward-”

“Tea!” Martin stood up suddenly, the desk rattling under his grip. He pushed himself to his feet so quickly that his chair rolled into a nearby bookshelf with a _thump._ “I, I should make some tea. Who wants tea?”

Sasha glanced at him. “Martin?”

“I’ll just make enough for everyone!” Martin’s voice pitched high as he walked out of the room with stiff, uneven steps, and when Sasha repeated his name, he waved his hand and declared in a strangled voice, “I’m fine. Everything’s fine!” Martin pulled the door shut behind him with a click.

“Self-fulfilling prophecy,” Tim observed after a momentary pause, dragging a hand through short brown hair. The position rucked up the short sleeve of his shirt, revealing the edge of a red and gold tattoo. “That _was_ awkward.”

Jon pursed his lips, exercising a modicum of restraint so as not to alienate his research assistants on the first day. He was cognizant of his own status as an ‘outsider’ and decided not to press on personal matters. He settled on another, more relevant question which he addressed to Sasha. “Is there a reason you haven’t digitized these archives?”

“Weeell,” Tim took the liberty of answering first, " _I_ haven’t done it because I just transferred to this mole hole from the third floor.”

“Ignore him,” Sasha insisted to Jon, but she was smiling even as she explained, “Gertrude Robinson was the archivist here for… decades, and she never stored files on the Institute servers. She always said the only thing you can’t hack is paper.”

Tim scoffed. “Sounds like classic geriatric technophobia.”

“You never spoke to her,” Sasha retorted, gesturing for Tim to close his mouth before turning to Jon, “Gertrude had her own system, she did a lot of recording and writing by hand. I’m not sure how she organized things. I’ve only been working down here since May.”

“I see.” Two hundred years of research languishing in the basement. It struck Jon as grossly irresponsible. Elias had informed him during his first interview that the primary role of the archival staff was to document the mandated functions of the Institute – research, education, healthcare delivery – as well as its cultural properties and history. They were also tasked with collecting and preserving records of product design, services rendered, industry collaborations, and clinical trials according to the Institute’s stringent privacy and patent guidelines. All of this information should have been uploaded to a database, not collecting dust in a row of unnamed boxes. 

“What’s the verdict, boss? Chuck it all in an industrial sized shredder?”

“Of course not,” Jon’s voice was sharp with irritation – less directed at Tim than at the fact that he had no clear guidance on how to proceed. His predecessor had left him little to build on and he had never felt more unqualified for this position. “We… need to start somewhere. Let’s take this shelf, we’ll call it ‘A’.” Jon walked over to the shelf in question, which he’d chosen simply for its proximity to the assistants’ desks, “I’d like you to go through these boxes, pull out any information related to clinical trials and statements for me, and set the rest aside for now.”

Jon reasoned in the moment that digitizing records of study participants and outcomes would be most relevant to the purpose of the archive. Doubting his decision almost as soon as he’d spoken, Jon cast an uncertain look to Sasha and Tim.

“Sounds good.”

Sasha’s easy agreement loosened a knot in his chest, and Jon offered a small smile when Tim gave him a thumb’s up. “Thank you,” he replied stiffly, selecting one of the boxes to carry back to his office. It was heavier than it appeared to be. Jon was not strictly qualified to analyze the content of the archive – he was not a chemical engineer or a scientist, and he had never studied statistics – but the digitization of materials and organization of files, cross-checking of reported data, was familiar to him as a researcher and curator.

Jon sank into his office chair and reached for the box he’d taken from the archive, pulling out a handful of loose papers that the previous archivist did not even bother to staple together – let alone paginate. He separated out what he believed to be an anonymous trial participant’s statement, made possible by their distinctive handwriting. Turning over the pages with a frown, Jon did not register the tentative sound of a knock at his door.

“Come in,” he muttered without looking up.

The door edged open slowly with the apologetic stammer of Martin’s voice. “Sorry to bother you,” he said quickly, drawing Jon’s irritated gaze. He was holding a green mug in both hands. “I, I thought you might want some tea. I didn’t know what you took with it – it’s, um, Earl Grey is all we have right now. I didn’t add anything to it, but I can if you want. We have sugar and milk and honey- I don’t think we have any lemon but-”

“It’s fine,” Jon interrupted, impatient, “You can put it down on the table.” It wasn’t until after Martin did so, shuffling forward into the room, that it occurred to Jon to acknowledge it. “Thank you.” It was harder to be grateful knowing that Martin strolled off to make tea instead of engaging in a discussion of their _work_ , but Jon supposed he wouldn’t have had very much to offer on the subject. He, like Tim, was a new transfer to the archive.

“Sure,” Martin smiled at the muttered thanks, before glancing towards the door, “I, um, I should let you get back to it, I guess-”

“Why are you here?”

“Excuse me?”

“In the medical archive,” Jon elaborated, narrowing his eyes, “One month ago, you were working as an ‘aide’ for patients.”

“Ah,” Martin’s brow furrowed, and he raised a hand to run over his mouth and chin, an anxious gesture, “I, er, I only really worked with one patient, um, one time and it…” he gave Jon a plaintive look, and as Jon had no desire to relive that moment either, he gestured for Martin to go on, “I asked- um, to transfer somewhere else.” Ah. So, the decision was made to place Martin in a role where he would not be interacting with the public.

“Do you think you are better suited for this position than your last?”

Martin laughed, a strained and nervous sound. “I, I really don’t know. I hope so.”

“So do I.” Jon found that his second impression of Martin was not an improvement on the first. “You can go. Shut the door behind you.” He turned his gaze back to the stack of papers on his desk and got to work.

In the two weeks that followed, Jon grew more accustomed to his position and he decided to approach the medical archive as he would approach a museum collection to curate for display. This led to him devising an organizational system for reviewing and categorizing the aggregate data. Sasha and Tim were very good at adhering to this and Jon’s complaints were largely reserved for Martin, who proved to be incompetent.

By far the most interesting aspect of this archive – in Jon’s opinion – were the statements collected from former patients, industry professionals, and trial participants, some anonymous, who reported unexpected side effects associated with a course of treatment, prototype, or clinical study. A common thread in these statements was anxiety with regards to sentient machines. It spoke to the mythologizing of ‘idle hands’ and ‘ghost in the machine’ which encouraged fanciful imaginings or unsolicited paranoia of being replaced, being controlled. Jon was invested in both disproving and cataloguing these accounts which represented alternative attitudes towards technological integration in the modern era. A worthwhile project.

* * *

“This doesn’t piss you off?” Tim rolled around in Sasha’s office chair, dragging the heel of his white Oliver Cabell sneaker along the linoleum floor where she was sitting, cross-legged, in front of a 2010 HP Pavilion p6500. He began rearranging the Tardis console figurines on her desk.

“You better put those back in order,” Sasha opened the side panel of the desktop to pull the hard drive loose from a metal bracket behind the display, “Can I have the PH000? It’s the first one on the bottom row.”

Tim picked up the screwdriver kit and fished out the correct head, leaning down to hand it to Sasha. “Well?” he pressed.

“What do you want me to say?” she replied, removing the screws along the edge and sliding the hard drive out of its sheath. “Elias never promised it’d be an internal hire.” She balanced her laptop on her right knee, connecting it to the hard drive via the transfer cable to start the sync.

“You’d think it’d be someone who could use a computer,” Tim drawled, “Especially if he’s… you know.”

“ _Tim_.”

“What?” Sasha raised an eyebrow and he sighed. “It's just... this wasn’t about hiring the most qualified person,” Tim paused to give her an emphatic look, and Sasha smiled at him. “He doesn’t know what he’s doing. The only reason Elias chose him was because,” he rubbed his fingers together, “Jon Sims is worth a fortune to R&D. If we farmed out his organs, we could probably buy an island.”

Sasha chuckled. “Why would I want to be on an island with you?”

Tim clutched at his chest, giving her the pout that launched a thousand Tinder notifications. “So mean.”

“You like it.”

“I really do.”

She grinned, adjusting her glasses. Leaving her laptop to parse what was left of the Pavilion, she wiggled her fingers at Tim who leaned forward to help her to her feet. “Jon will get the hang of it eventually.” Sasha had already come to grips with her disappointment over losing out on the position, and she was updating her CV, scanning job lists for a new opportunity. She couldn’t afford to sic HR on Elias. He could torpedo her whole career with one bad reference. Besides, she didn’t blame _Jon_ for getting himself hired. All he did was apply for a job.

Sasha knew she had more experience than him, and it stung to be overlooked after five years. But it wasn’t as if _any_ of them should’ve been top picks for the medical archive. Sasha was a prototype technician by trade (a job she hated and was eager to trade off on), and Tim came down from focus group research. Martin lied on his CV and literally walked in off the street, bouncing around departments. It felt a little bit like living on the island of misfit toys. And Jon wasn’t so bad (to her, personally). Sasha didn’t mind helping him out until she found something better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading. I'd love to see you on tumblr (I'm idigtheburied.tumblr.com). FYI, you can microchip yourself for a couple hundred dollars if you want to! But I wouldn't recommend doing it if Elias Bouchard asked you to.


	3. Grey Goo (I)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grey Goo: a hypothetical global catastrophic scenario involving molecular nanotechnology in which out-of-control self-replicating machines consume all biomass on Earth while building more of themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for worms in the spirit of MAG 22 (all credit to TheRustyQuill).

Timothy Hodge was a freelance designer, contracted by an industry partner of the Magnus Institute to sell their new line of “smart thermostats.” His connection to the Institute was tenuous but he “thought they could look into it,” as both the police and the ECDC dismissed his account of the events that transpired in his Brixton residence. In his statement, he described a sexual encounter with a woman, Harriet Lee, who “dissolved into grey goo” on his bed. The so-called “goo” was “chunky,” he wrote, “as if someone had dumped rice into rotten pudding. And the rice was moving.” Timothy Hodge ended his statement with a confession of arson, having set fire to his flat.

As Jon read the statement aloud, grimacing at the unfortunate food analogies, his laptop preserved the audio file and transcribed it into a word document. Jon combed through the document to correct small errors and consulted the information Sasha had retrieved for him. Several of the files Jon had gone through in the past month were bereft of any documentation beyond a first-person account. He scanned the documents into the cloud, sorted by date. But no responsible curator would display items without confirming their origin and the veracity of the subject’s claims, which they would use to provide context for the purveyor of the collection. Jon applied this same logic to his work in the archive. Timothy Hodge was a fine example of why Sasha’s follow-up was necessary: the man was inebriated at the time of the event, there was no sign of arson and no biological matter recovered from the scene. And Jon did not need to be a scientist to know that human bodies did not spontaneously liquefy.

There was one aspect of the narrative that interested him. The description of ‘the woman in the red dress’ matched that of Jane Prentiss, mentioned in a statement Jon logged ten days ago. There was a record of her arrival at the Magnus Institute – it was timestamped in the security log of the lobby, and she was observed on surveillance footage – but if she made a statement, he had yet to locate it. Jane Prentiss was only relevant to his work insomuch as she was in this archive, but Sasha had found references to outstanding warrants for her arrest related to an undisclosed incident that occurred at Whittington Hospital two years ago. It was the same hospital Jon was taken to the night his mother died. A coincidence, of course, for two individuals residing in London over the course of twenty years, but he did wonder if she'd met with Dr. Cane.

“It would be easier to say what Jane Prentiss is _not_ …” Jon mused, watching the thin black cursor blink intermittently as the words appeared on the screen, “She is not listed as a participant, patient, or client in any other department. There is no evident connection between Prentiss and the Magnus Institute. Still, she came to us for a reason. If I could find her statement, this would elucidate-” A knock at the door interrupted his train of thought, and with an irritable sigh Jon paused the transcription program. “Come in.”

The door opened with the tentative push he had come to expect from Martin, who stepped over the threshold in a green jumper with a cup of tea in his hand. He smiled at Jon, a flickering, tentative gesture. “Is this… um, a good time?”

“Not unless you are bringing me something useful.” At least he had stopped asking whether Jon was ‘busy’ or not when he stopped in, which was an irritating question because _of course he was busy._ Unlike some people, he didn’t spend his workday brewing tea (although Martin was, he grudgingly admitted, rather good at it).

“That depends on your opinion of tea,” Martin offered with a small laugh.

“I have no opinions on tea,” Jon said flatly.

“That’s not true.” The bluntness of the statement surprised him, and he blinked up at Martin who went on to say, “You aren’t a fan of herbal teas. You never finish those. You like Darjeeling, no milk or lemon. I think it’s your favourite.”

Jon was momentarily speechless. As an assistant, Martin lacked initiative and he was lazy – during their first five days together, Jon sent him to follow up with Nathan Watts, and after a weekend in Edinburgh he returned to the Institute, claiming that Watts ‘wasn’t home when he knocked.’ He had spoken to neighbors and come away with nothing but a recipe for gluten-free cranachan. Furthermore, he had a propensity for relying on citation generators which were always incorrect. All that was to say that Jon did not consider Martin particularly observant, and he was bemused by his assistant’s insight into his preferred blend of tea.

“So…” Martin spoke into the now uncomfortably long silence, stepping further into the office to slide the tea onto the desk, “That’s what I made today. I hope your tastes haven’t changed overnight.”

“They haven’t,” he replied, frowning at the joke as he reached for the cup and dragged it across the table, “Thank you.”

“Sure,” Martin tugged at a loose string on his jumper sleeve, which Jon found distracting in his peripheral vision.

“What do you know about the online role-playing game, _Ushanka’s Despair_?” he asked, turning to his screen. Jon had spoken to one of the Institute’s computer scientists, Tessa Winters, two days ago. 

“Ummm… sounds Russian?” Jon spared him a glare for the thoughtless answer and Martin shifted his weight. “Sorry. I don’t really play games. Oh!” his eyes widened, “But Sasha does. Should I… do you want me to get her?”

“No need.” Jon attached the transcript to an email as Martin spoke, sending it to Sasha with a brief directive. “I have something else for you to look into,” he announced, pushing away from the desk to retrieve a file tabbed in red from a box on the floor, “Carlos Vittery.” Jon had looked over the statement once already. Vittery had participated in a clinical study six months ago testing a new method of exposure therapy. He later returned to the Institute and met with the primary investigator claiming that he was being stalked by “robot spiders.” The statement ended up in the archive, instead of with HR for reasons unclear to Jon. He suspected the PI reached the same conclusion he did: a delusion exacerbated by arachnophobia. It was undoubtedly a waste of time to pursue further but needs must. No matter how absurd the statement, Jon was obligated to put it through the same rigorous cross-checking as the rest. He gave the file to Martin. “Confirm the dates, ask Tim to follow up with Mr. Vittery.”

“Will do,” Martin promised, hovering until Jon scowled up at him. Was he waiting for an explicit dismissal? “Oh, um, okay. I’ll just… I’ll go… do this.” Tapping the file in one hand, Martin stammered his way out of the office. At least he closed the door.

Jon gazed down at the mug in his hands, dark honey gold and sweet. He initially felt uncomfortable accepting this daily gesture. Jon was cognizant of the fact that his assistants were assistants _to the archive_ , not to him as an individual. He was careful not to make any personal requests of them as it would be inappropriate. He respected- well, Sasha and Tim, at least, as researchers and colleagues. He didn’t think much of Martin, but he wouldn’t overstep the boundaries of professional courtesy. Perceiving his discomfort at one such juncture, Sasha assured him that making tea was ‘just what Martin did’ and that he liked to do it for his coworkers. Jon accepted it then, as a personality quirk that often made his days better.

Jon could admit that his first impression of Martin might have been uncharitable. He was still an inadequate researcher and Jon found his proclivity for sociable digressions in conversation to be as tiresome as it ever was – but he had not commented further on the “cyborg” nonsense. He didn’t ask whether Jon needed to eat or drink, or stare at him as if to parse which parts were still human. It would be impossible to know as he had no overt markers of cybernetic enhancement, but Jon had found that this fact made people more uncomfortable once they discovered what he was. He was not one to volunteer information but somehow his confidential medical records always ended up circulating among peers and coworkers. He entered this position expecting more of the same, but no one mentioned it. He supposed – despite what his initial interaction with Martin had led him to believe – cybernetics was sufficiently normalized within the microcosm of the Institute.

Reclining in his chair, Jon finished his tea in silence. Martin hadn’t oversteeped it, and it was perfect. 

* * *

Martin released a shaky breath on the other side of Jon’s door, closing his eyes. He took a moment to himself in the empty corridor, holding onto the file with both hands. Today was better. Jon gave him an assignment without muttering under his breath and did not reprimand him for sloppy paperwork on the Hill Top Clinic file. It was the best conversation he’d had with Jon in- well, since he’d known him. Ugh. Martin regretted a lot of things, but he thought about the first time they met _a lot_ , and shame curled in his gut each time he replayed the words in his head. Everyone was so interested in Jon because he was one of (maybe?) three people in the world to survive having that much cybernetic reconstruction. The Magnus Institute very rarely took patients. 

To hear some of the staff talk about him, Martin got the distinct impression Jon was more of an experiment to them than a patient-patient. He was shuffling between the medical library and an ongoing sleep study on the fourth floor when Elias pulled him aside to assist Jon’s doctors. His job was mostly administrative with minor patient prep, nothing he hadn’t done for his mother before she decided to move into assisted living. He visited Jon twice before their disastrous “meeting,” bringing in flowers to brighten up the room and wondering what color his eyes were. And then he was awake ( _his eyes were brown_ ), and Martin… blurted out something stupid. That was an awful day.

Then Jon came back to the Institute, clean-shaven and dressed nicer than anything Martin owned. That day was even _more_ awful. After Jon asked him if he was “suited” to the position of archival assistant, Martin fled from his office and hovered over the tea kettle, hands shaking with knots in his stomach, waiting to be fired. He wasn’t fired but it was painfully clear that Jon hated him. The weeks dragged on and Martin made a lot of mistakes. Was he the _only_ one making mistakes? It felt that way sometimes. Jon never reprimanded Sasha or Tim – not in public, anyway.

It was embarrassing, but the pay and the benefits were better than anything else he could get with his (exaggerated, semi-nonexistent) qualifications. The work was interesting. And it wasn’t like Jon terrorized him. Mostly, he ignored Martin unless he was doing something wrong. He would probably ignore Martin a lot more if he stopped bringing him tea, but that was the only thing Martin felt like he did _right_. 

Carlos Vittery. Maybe this would be the one he didn’t mess up.

With a sharp nod to himself, Martin smoothed out his jumper as best he could and walked back to the archive. Tim and Sasha looked up when he entered, and he tried to distract them from making any concerned overtures by waving the file in the air. 

It worked – on Tim, at least. “News from the boss?” He tapped his palms on the desk in a playful imitation of a drumroll.

“The usual,” Martin replied lightly, giving the file to Tim, “Jon wants you to talk to Carlos Vittery. I’m on date-checking duty.” Maybe he could talk to the PI, though he doubted they would tell him anything – NDAs and privacy issues. It’d be nice if he could impress Jon for a change, though.

“Alright, Martin?” Sasha wasn’t so easily distracted, and she smiled at him gently.

Martin felt his face grow warm and he nodded, swallowing. “Fine,” he replied firmly, his voice cracking slightly on the vowel. “Jon has something for you too,” he was desperate to change the subject, “He emailed it to you. I think it has something to do with a Russian-themed RPG.”

“Ooh. I like.” Sasha brightened and shifted her attention to her laptop.

“Seriously?” Tim demanded, mock indignation in his voice, “She gets paid to play a game? This is blatant favouritism.”

Martin shrugged in response, hiding a smile of his own as he sat down at his desk. He knew that Tim was teasing but he also saw some truth in it: Sasha _was_ Jon’s favourite. Martin wasn’t surprised. She was poised to have his job – everybody thought she would be the next archivist – so she knew what she was doing. She was smart and funny, and she argued with Jon sometimes. He never seemed to get mad at her over it. Martin figured he must’ve liked it- the intellectual challenge, or whatever. Martin couldn’t even be jealous because she was so nice to him and tried to help him avoid the worst of Jon’s exacting wrath- she even typed up a list of mock citations for him to reference.

“I’ve heard of this game,” Sasha informed them, ignoring Tim’s attempts to bait her over favouritism, “It’s based on a true story. There was this digital guru in the 1980s named Sergey Ushanka and he tried to upload his consciousness to a computer. Legend is that he went insane trying to code his own mind and mutilated himself to death. There are lots of versions, but they're all gory.”

“Oh my god.” Martin was horrified.

“That’s not a good storyline for a game,” Tim scoffed, “You already know how it ends.”

“You don’t play Ushanka,” Sasha corrected, as if it was obvious, and read the description off the computer screen, “You play his colleague and you have to unravel the mystery of his disappearance and recover his research before it is stolen by ‘The Spiral.’’” She leaned forward on the desk, wiggling her fingers for dramatic effect. "If the Institute pays for the subscription, we can play together... team-building exercise, anybody?"

“No thanks,” Martin replied, wrinkling his nose, “It sounds… spooky.”

The morning was spent listening to Sasha and Tim argue over video game logic and digging into the Vittery statement. He started by looking up Vittery’s last known addresses, tracking down landlords, and sending emails. He also sent an email to the PI in charge of the clinical study. He would give it a day with his fingers crossed before he tried cold calling a list of strangers (his least favourite task). Tim had a bit more luck when he finally deigned to look up Vittery’s contact information: he came across an online obituary. There were no details about how Vittery died but Tim shrugged it off and said he ‘knew a filing clerk.’ Then he left for lunch and didn’t come back for the rest of the day.

* * *

It must have been _some_ lunch because the next morning, Tim strolled into the archive and informed Martin that Carlos Vittery died of a heart attack. He even had a copy of the coroner’s report. Martin was spurred to make a few phone calls, following up on his (unanswered) emails, which confirmed most of the dates in the statement. When he did not get a response from the landlord at Boothby Road, he decided to visit the flat himself. And because he wasn’t comfortable skiving off work to do his investigating, he woke up early on Saturday morning, packed a small bag, and took the Northern Line to Archway. It was drizzling and the sky was heavy and grey. Martin squinted up at the clouds, rubbing at his glasses and wishing he’d had the foresight to bring an umbrella.

He found the building and peered through a window at an empty tile lobby. He pressed the buzzer, but it didn’t ring out and there was no movement inside. Next to the door handle, he noticed a sensor plate for key fobs. He couldn’t tell if it was working or not. Should he come back later? Martin considered it for a few seconds. He could still hear Jon’s voice berating him for wasting the Institute’s time and money by traveling to Edinburgh and _failing to exercise due diligence._ Did he think it was a holiday? Was he capable of following simple directions? Was he completely incompetent? Jaw set, Martin tugged on the door expecting nothing – only for the handle to give under his hand. It was unlocked.

Martin didn’t fancy having to climb in through a basement window, so it was with no small amount of relief that he opened the door and stepped into the lobby. There was a second glass door separating the lobby from the ground floor proper, and it too was unlocked. Martin found his way to the lifts, pressing the small white arrow and waiting for upwards of a minute before he realized they weren’t coming. It occurred to him then that the electricity in the building might be out. The only light he saw was streaming in through high rectangular windows. He made his way to the stairwell and said a quiet prayer of thanks that Carlos Vittery lived on the second floor, not the fifth or sixth. Then he began to climb.

The stairwell door to the second floor was also unlocked, and Martin stepped into a dark corridor. _No electricity, right._ He fumbled for his phone and squinted at the bright, synthetic glow of the screen. No service. No wifi. The torch still worked, and Martin thumbed it ‘on’ with an uneasy swallow. He could hear voices, movement from inside two of the flats, which made him breathe a little easier- until he noticed the open door. His phone illuminated the strip of corridor before him, three doors on either side and one at either end of the corridor. It was the third door on the left, and with a sinking sensation he realized it was Vittery’s. He knew it before he even saw the number: 204.

Martin thought it was likely a new family had moved into the flat since Vittery moved, but this was information he was hoping to clarify with the landlord. As he drew closer to the open door, however, he realized with a sinking sensation that he didn’t hear any noise coming from Vittery’s flat. Had the residents been robbed? Had they gone over to a neighbour’s? The polite thing to do would have been to call out over the shadowy threshold, but Martin’s chest tightened with a stinging, tingling terror that he couldn’t describe. It was so uncomfortable.

He lifted his torch and peered inside. That was when he saw it- them? There was something moving on the hardwood floor, something very small and silvery. Martin could barely make it out behind his rain-fogged glasses, and he followed the trail of tiny, wriggling shapes to the faint rustling sound of- the hunched over form of a body. _C_ _hrist._ It was a person. There was a person in the flat.

Fuck. Oh fuck.

Martin gripped his phone hard, the plastic edges digging into his skin, and tried to ignore the shifting, bobbing shape of his own quivering shadow. The figure’s hair was long and dark, stringy, and dirty, and he thought it was a woman for some reason. She was wearing a gray coat that touched the ground. She made a gurgling sound, shifting where he stood, and Martin had had enough hangovers in his life to recognize the sound. She was gagging, a repeated, wet _huuk!_ Then she curled forward and vomited into a handkerchief. The vomit streamed through the cloth and splattered onto the floor, and it made a thick, slapping sound on the hardwood – like mud. It was dark gray, or maybe black, a viscous, oily looking puddle that reminded him of _sludge, chemical sludge_. He thought it might be moving- and he clapped a hand over his mouth, but that didn’t do enough to stifle the scream. The figure swiveled around, the thick, black fluid running down her ruined lips and chin. There were tiny silver grains clinging to the liquid, catching the light of his phone. She smiled at him and he saw her teeth were nearly rotted away. He stumbled backwards and she let go of her coat, revealing gray skin covered in tiny pinpricks, so small he wouldn’t even notice them if they weren’t black and… leaking.

Martin fumbled to take a photo of her- maybe a video? Then he saw the silver grains of rice on the floor, wriggling- vibrating? and suddenly where there was one, there were two, and so on, they were _replicating_ , and shifting closer together, forming… something… it kind of looked like a thin, segmented worm, and it was moving- faster- towards _him_ , scraping against the wood. He dropped his phone, turned and ran back to the stairwell, and out of the building. Then he kept running. It wasn’t until he was collapsed and flushed, doubled over to catch his breath, on the underground that he remembered… _oh God, there were still people there, in that building._ Martin babbled something – he couldn’t even recall what he was saying – to an attendant in an orange vest, once he got off at Stockwell. It was at the other end of the Northern Line and he tried not to think about those poor people, stuck in that dark apartment with… whatever that was… Martin gave the address to the attendant, but he didn’t give his own name and when the attendant turned away to make a call, Martin left. No one would ever accuse him of being subtle, but tube stations were busy and he needed to go home. He barely remembered the stumbling walk home, but he remembered locking his door and staggering to his room.

Martin sat on the edge of the bed and told himself he was… it was only… he just needed a moment…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the feedback thusfar -- it's been so encouraging!


	4. Grey Goo (II)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martin returns to the archive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cw for brief negative self-talk from Martin related to work competence and a discussion of technophobia.

Jon discovered a letter dated 31 March 1932 addressed to Jonah Magnus, detailing an encounter between a German scientist, Dr. Albrecht, and a young Alan Turing. The letter was stored in an acid-free envelope, which served as the extent of the preservation method employed by the previous archivist. The ink was faded, and Jon swore to himself as he saw the date. Setting down the letter gently, he walked out of the room to wash his hands and retrieve a pair of gloves from the kitchen. If Gertrude Robinson insisted on preserving the contents of this archive, she might have put in a fraction of effort to take care of ninety-year-old documents.

Sasha and Tim were out for lunch. Martin was still sick. Jon called the reception desk, setting the letter aside with two gloved fingers. Rosie answered after two bleating rings with her characteristic cheerfulness. “Good afternoon, Jon. How can I help you?”

“Yes, er, hello Rosie,” Jon paused to modulate his pitch into something less overtly aggravated, “I was calling to inquire whether we have any bags or sleeves for documents in the archive?”

“Hmm,” Rosie made a considering sound, “It sounds like something we _should_ have. I’ll check inventory for you.”

“Thank you.”

“Oh, Jon?” He made an answering sound of acknowledgment as he entered the letter’s details into the cloud, tagging it as history. “While I’ve got you on the line, would you mind sending Martin up to collect his phone?”

“Martin,” Jon repeated, “Martin’s out sick today,” and had been for over a week according to the text messages sent to Sasha from his personal number, not that the archive suffered any real loss of productivity in his absence.

“I don’t think so,” Rosie replied, “His RFID scanned in forty-five minutes ago, but he didn’t pick up his phone.”

“I haven’t seen him.” Jon wondered if he’d missed Martin’s arrival – possible, but it seemed out of character for Martin, who apologised for buying the ‘wrong’ percentage of milk for the breakroom, not to stop in to _acknowledge_ showing up to work two hours late. Jon straightened at his desk. “Do you know where he is?”

“Give me a sec,” there was an indefinable, muffled sound on the other end and then- “It looks like he just tried to enter Prototype Storage on the second floor, but he doesn’t have the clearance.” She paused, “Is something wrong?”

“No, I’m sure everything’s fine,” Jon replied reflexively. There was no need to send security after Martin of all people, “I’ll look into it. Thank you.” Setting aside the letter, Jon pulled off his gloves and stuffed them into his pocket, rubbing his hands together to brush off the powder with a grimace. He pulled out his mobile.

_12:04 PM  
Hello Sasha. This is Jon.  
12:05 PM  
Apologies for disrupting your lunch. Has Martin come in today? _

_12:07 PM  
I no it’s u Jon lol  
No he’s still sick  
12:08 PM  
Tim hasn’t seen him  
12:09 PM  
???_

_12:10 PM_  
_Rosie informed me that his RFID was scanned in less than an hour ago.  
Is there a reason he would be in Prototype Storage right now?_

_12:12 PM  
No that’s weird  
12:13 PM  
Calling him now  
Hold on  
12:17 PM  
Straight to voicemail both numbers  
I can track his phone_

_12:20 PM_  
_There’s no need for that. I will go to Prototype Storage._

Jon did not receive an answer from Sasha, which he suspected meant she was already in the process of invading Martin’s privacy further. He supposed he was no better, in requesting Rosie to divulge where in the Institute Martin was likely to be – but then this was a choice they made, privileging security over confidentiality. Jon grappled with this question as he took the lift to the second floor, pocketing his mobile as he stepped into the pale gray corridor. It seemed strange to him that Prototype Storage would not share the basement with the archive, but then again- considering the unfortunate _state_ of the archive and its mistreatment of rare historical documents, perhaps there was a logic to distancing one from the other. Prototype Storage took up much of the second floor, sealed rooms accessible only to those with clearance through a decontamination chamber and a full body scan.

Jon had never seen the interior and evidently, neither had Martin. There was no one in the corridor, and as Jon walked the length of it and peered through the glass, no evidence that Martin had ever been here. His mobile hummed in his back pocket and he reached for it, turning back to the lift. It was Sasha.

_12:29 PM  
I can’t find it  
Backtracing his texts atm  
I think he’s using a data mask_

_12:31 PM  
What does that mean? _

_12:33 PM  
Anonymizes IP address/erases GPS data  
The GCHQ could track it  
But I’m on a budget _¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

_12:35 PM  
Do you know Martin’s address? _

_12:37 PM  
Yes  
Want us to swing by_

_12:38 PM  
Yes._

_12:39 PM  
Will do  
  
_

Jon decided to bypass security in order to speak with Elias Bouchard directly. The appropriate course of action would have been to return to reception and make an appointment, but Jon firmly believed that time was of the essence in this circumstance. Elias Bouchard’s office was located on the fifth floor of the Magnus Institute, which housed corporate offices and meeting rooms for distinguished guests and donors. Jon had seen it twice – and both times was struck by the fact that Elias did not have a receptionist of his own, or assistants who worked for him. In fact, the fifth floor was remarkably empty, giving the impression of a watchful solitude. A ball camera affixed to the ceiling next to the door gazed down at him with an impassive, black lens and Jon knew he was being observed.

This was confirmed when he raised a hand to knock-

 _“Come in, Jon.”_ Elias’ voice rang clearly from beyond the door, Jon’s curled fist hovering in midair. Swallowing his discomfort, he dropped his hand to the doorknob and turned it. It gave away and opened into the office. Jon’s gaze swept over familiar white walls and gray carpeting before settling on Elias, who sat behind his desk with a pleasant, unreadable expression. He gestured for the archivist to sit down in an unoccupied chair.

“I apologize for the intrusion,” Jon began awkwardly, stepping further into the room. Without waiting for absolution for his flagrant violation of the Institute’s bureaucratic processes, he blurted out, “I’m afraid there may be a security breach. Martin Blackwood’s RFID chip scanned in an hour ago. I believe he is at home.” Jon hesitated short of mentioning Prototype Storage on the slim possibility that it _was_ Martin attempting to access the area. 

“I see.” Elias mused, turning to the screen on his desk, “Thank you for bringing this to my attention.”

“Yes,” Jon agreed, a punch of sound catching on the word, “Security footage of the past ninety minutes could tell us whether Martin is on the premises, or if it is someone else.” And he had come to Elias in the hopes of facilitating the search quickly, as he would be able to provide the administrative permissions for access.

“I will take that under advisement.” Jon fidgeted at the clear dismissal in Elias’ placid voice, digging the nail of his middle finger into the pad of his thumb. The doctor looked up. “Is that all?”

“Yes, I- I suppose.” Jon hesitated for a moment before getting up and excusing himself with a stiff lock of his shoulders. Elias said nothing, returning his attention to the inscrutable screen on his desk, and Jon left. At a loss for what to do next, Jon wiped his palms on his trousers and returned to an empty archive.

* * *

Jon scanned photographs of the Albrecht letter before reading it aloud, transcribing the handwriting into text. Much of the letter detailed hypothetical advancements in mathematics and computability theory that Jon would have struggled to understand even if the letter was granted his undivided attention. As it was, his supplemental notes were sparse and distracted, as he wondered whether getting back to work was the most ethical course of action. His mobile lay untouched on the corner of his desk, silent and dark. _No news is good news_ , or so the saying went, but Jon did not see how either outcome could be ‘good’. It surprised him that Elias acknowledged – in his way – that it was possible to have one’s RFID duplicated or stolen. Shouldn’t there be safeguards in place to prevent such a thing?

Jon flexed his wrist under the light, turning over his hand and stretching out his fingers to examine the glint of metal embedded in his skin. If he had known the chip could be tampered with, he wouldn’t have consented to it. In some ways, RFID implants were rather rudimentary, relying on radio transmitters and responders. But he supposed the radio did still have its virtues, and it was certainly more affordable and multifaceted than other methods of digital identification. 

The RFID chip reminded him of the Hodge statement. Harriet Lee couldn’t possibly be infested with rice-sized metal implants – those would be much larger than anything a doctor would insert into a human body _en masse_. What the designer described was free-floating metal being expunged from Ms. Lee. Timothy Hodge described an unrealistic succession of events, but in terms of a logical explanation, Harriet Lee might have consumed and regurgitated metal pieces (if indeed it was metal and not simply _rice_ ). Pica was a documented eating disorder. Perhaps he should send Tim to speak with her family- no, better Sasha-

“Jon.”

He blinked up at the sound of his own name, momentarily disoriented by the fact that his office door was open, and Martin Blackwood stood on the threshold. His darting eyes and unfortunate pallor drew Jon’s attention, curly hair clinging to his forehead and the cusps of his ears, rumpled brown trousers and threadbare jumper.

“Good Lord,” Jon stood up from behind his desk, categorizing the compulsive curling and uncurling of the archival assistant’s freckled fingers, clasped around a small green bowl, “Martin, you look terrible.”

“I know,” he replied, mouth twisting into a wobbly facsimile of a smile, “I haven’t been, um, sleeping much. I think I found Jane Prentiss- or, I mean, it wasn’t her, or it wasn’t _just_ her, it was… a person, I think?”

Jon raised his eyebrows at the mention of Jane Prentiss, but he set that aside for a moment. “You haven’t been in to work today?”

“No-” Martin’s voice broke off with a shaky laugh, while Jon steadfastly ignored the frisson of satisfaction, he felt to have his suspicions confirmed. “I haven’t… she wouldn’t let me leave.” Martin stepped into the office and set the bowl down on the desk. Jon leaned over to see – through the murky tinted container lid – what seemed to be a thin silver wire. It was less than a millimetre in width and half a centimetre long, slightly shorter than a grain of rice. He touched the lid and the wire twitched, wriggling across the bottom of the bowl towards his hand.

Jon jerked his hand back and looked up at Martin. “What is this?”

“It’s proof,” he said, biting the inside of his bottom lip, jaw working slowly, “It’s the only thing they wouldn’t eat through… eat probably isn’t the right word. They’re not… alive, I mean, not in the way that you and I are alive…”

Jon examined the bowl with renewed interest, cutting Martin off before he could launch into an irrelevant digression. He struggled to stay on topic at the best of times, and today he barged into the office traumatized.

Martin shrugged, gaze shifting from the bowl to Jon. He wanted to give an accounting of what happened to him, to have a record of it. Jon wasn’t sure it was a good idea- perhaps he ought to sleep, or one of the others should be here to comfort him, but in the end, Jon obliged by sitting down and setting up the audio file and microphone.

“Whenever you’re ready.”

* * *

Martin started at the beginning, explaining to Jon what he had found when he followed up on Carlos Vittery’s statement and visited his apartment. He recounted the sight of the woman – presumably _Jane Prentiss_ – and his initial escape. When Martin woke up again, he couldn’t see anything. He wasn’t sure what time it was, that night or well into the next, only that his flat had never seemed so… _dark_. His digital clock was off. He felt his way out of the bedroom- in the kitchen, the microwave light was off, the stove too, and his refrigerator wasn’t humming. In the living room, there was no light from his television or his internet router. He tried to turn on his lamp and it wouldn’t work. Another power cut? Martin tried to remember if he had a battery-operated torch, and if so, where in the hell he would’ve put it… he emptied out three drawers before he finally found it, and then he heard the knocking again. His torchlight swept a white arc along the floor as he approached the door, and he saw them.

Small, silver grains, writhing between the sliver-like gap of the door and the threshold. There was maybe one coherent thought in his head, piercing the reflexive terror of _killitkillitkillit_ and _fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck_ \- they were so small, too small to step on, small enough to wedge through the tiniest cracks without him knowing. He grabbed packing tape, scotch tape, out of his kitchen and he taped them to the floor, taped over all the holes in his door. He layered it three, four, five times over before realizing he needed to conserve it. When he ran out of tape to use on the windows, he used tacky glue, super glue, hell, _Elmer’s glue_ , the sort of stuff that his landlord would kill him over. And then he wondered if tape and glue were enough, wondered if they would eat through it like they ate through _her_ and by now, he knew who she must have been. Jane Prentiss. Timothy Hodge. The sludge. The ‘moving rice’ which wasn’t rice at all, it was some kind of… mechanism, organism?

Martin taped cookie sheets to the door, knots of steel wool, anything flat and metallic to reinforce his ‘barrier’. He sat on top of his desk with his feet on his chair, watching the door. He didn’t take off his shoes, he barely slept, he pulled out all of his kitchen cleaners and piled them on top of a collapsible dinner tray within reach of the desk. He’d probably die from inhaling corrosive chemicals if he had to pour out an entire gallon of bleach in this cramped, airtight space, but if push came to shove, he was going to kill those… _things_ first.

Hours passed like this – and then days. Eventually Martin had to move around to eat – he finished off the perishable goods in his refrigerator first – and use the restroom, berate himself for losing his phone. His tablet and his laptop worked for the better part of a day, but he had no internet access and no way to contact the outside world. It got… boring. It went on and on like this and at no point did Martin figure out _why this was happening to him._

At some point it occurred to him that he might die in this place, and he remembered Timothy Hodge’s statement, the results of the police report that found no evidence of what it was that killed Harriet Lee. Martin thought about what people- what _Jon_ would say if he died in this flat – a pathetic shut-in, or an idiot who starved himself as unbelievable as that might seem, or disappeared without a trace, _incompetent, useless Martin who didn’t even have the decency to give his two weeks’ notice before he went off and died, leaving Mum to clean up the mess which he was sure she’d be thrilled about, getting that phone call_ – so he needed to have proof. He captured one of the worms by his front door in a bowl with a lid. He held onto it until he woke up to the sound of _more knocking_ \- accompanied by someone shouting his name.

Sasha and Tim. Martin stumbled into his living room and found his electronics had trickled back on at some point, and all evidence of the worms was gone. Not wanting to take any chances, or expose Sasha and Tim to Jane Prentiss, Martin dragged them out of the flat and asked to go directly to the Institute.

* * *

Jon took the bowl from Martin and directed him to the back room of the archive, sealed and humidity controlled with a cot and a set of clean linens. He decided to speak to Elias about increasing security in the archive and removing Martin’s compromised RFID implant, which had evidently been duplicated by Jane Prentiss in a failed effort to infiltrate the Magnus Institute. He informed Elias of this over the phone, but he neglected to mention the bowl on his desk. He should have surrendered it to the scientists or engineers trained to analyze such things, but he knew that if he did, he would never see it again. Jon didn’t have that sort of clearance or qualification, which meant this might be his only opportunity to observe what afflicted Jane Prentiss.

A week passed with no further sign of her. Martin remained at the archive and Jon set up what Georgie referred to as a ‘livestream’ with a portable ‘webcam’ to watch the contents of the bowl. In revisiting Martin’s statement, he described self-replicating and agglomerating metallic pieces which formed the shape of ‘worms.’ Jon was curious to see the particulars of the mechanism, but he did not want to draw further attention by attempting to requisition use of a laboratory or magnifying equipment at the Magnus Institute. No one had come into his office demanding the bowl, so he assumed that it remained an archival issue for the time being.

Jon kept an eye on the video feed throughout the week and noticed that the metallic ‘worm’ begin to detach into its smaller components after ninety-six hours, and it continued to do so until the particles were scarcely larger than a grain of sand, coating the bottom of the bowl. Rather than share his findings with his assistants – or the Institute at large – Jon decided to go to the suspected source. There was no need to drag anyone else into this.

The next morning, Jon arrived at the Institute at five-thirty in the morning. He intended to get through one more file before leaving for his eight o’clock appointment with Dr. Annabelle Crane. Two hours later, he retrieved the bowl from his desk, giving it a cursory inspection, and stepped out of his office, the door locking behind him. 

As he turned in the corridor, he noticed his assistant shuffling towards the breakroom in a black t-shirt and boxers. “Martin!” Lips flattening into a disapproving line, Jon reproached him for neglecting to display a modicum of decorum while living in the archive. Martin, for his part, did not expect to see Jon at work so early in the morning.

Martin’s brow furrowed. “Are you going somewhere?”

“I have an appointment this morning,” Jon replied, “I should be back before Tim graces us with his presence.”

“You’re leaving with… that?” Martin noticed the bowl and frowned. “I thought that was supposed to go to research.”

“We _do_ research,” Jon retorted, “I have other resources. Now if you’ll-”

“What resources?”

His nostrils flared in irritation at being interrupted – a rare thing for Martin to do, and ill-advised. “That is none of your concern.”

“ _Really?_ ” There was a flash of- something, Jon couldn’t identify it, but it was not a pleasant expression on his smooth, round face. “I’d say it’s at least as much my concern as it is yours – God, no offense.” There was a quiet, contrite flick of green eyes to his own but it wasn't enough to cow Martin. "I think if you’re going to meet someone about… Prentiss, or- or about what’s in that bowl, I want to come with you,” The wrinkled print of Martin's shirt caught Jon’s eye as he gesticulated – something about ghosts. “I _should_ come with you.”

“You should put on trousers,” Jon replied dryly, ignoring the brief flicker of regret he felt at further embarrassing Martin over his current state of _dishabille_ , “And you should stay here where it is safe.”

“It’s been a week,” Martin protested, “And there’s been no sign of her. Honestly, I’d feel better if I was _doing_ something about it. I’m the one who saw her, Jon. I- I could help you with… whatever this is.”

“I sincerely doubt that, Martin.”

“Jon. It’s my bowl.” Jon did not believe Martin’s traumatic experience would be relevant to this specific context, and he was reluctant to introduce any of his coworkers to Annabelle Cane. But Martin was insistent and Jon had wasted enough time arguing with him that he conceded – _if_ Martin could dress himself within the next five minutes, he could come along. Otherwise, Jon was leaving without him.

Ten minutes later, they were merging onto the A4201 towards Magdala Avenue in Jon’s 2007 Citigo. Martin held the bowl in his hands, his knee bobbing up and down. He was wearing jeans. Jon reviewed what he knew of Martin’s wardrobe and concluded that he had never seen the archival assistant in denim. The drive was unremarkable, and Martin only panicked once, upon doing a double take of the bowl and believing – for a moment – that the worm was missing. Jon nearly drove into a nearby lorry before recovering and explaining what he’d observed.

“So, what do you think it is?” Martin asked, holding up the bowl to peer at its base.

“I would rather not speculate.”

“But we’re going to see a doctor at Whittington?”

“Near Whittington. It is a private practice.” Jon’s fingers tightened on the wheel, and a muscle twitched in his jaw as he watched the white Tesla in front of them roll to a stop.

“Okay.”

Jon braced himself for the inevitable onslaught – which doctor, how did he know them, why did he choose them, what did he expect them to say – but to his surprise, Martin turned to look out the window and said nothing. He smiled at a small child in the backseat of a red Peugeot, who had pressed her mouth against the glass in a poor approximation of a blowfish. Jon watched him out of the corner of his eye before turning his attention back to the road. The quiet was unexpected. He knew that Martin had questions. Why wouldn’t he ask them?

“Her name is Dr. Cane,” Jon said finally, “She specializes in nanorobotic treatment.”

“Your old- er, former doctor?” Martin’s voice did a strange thing, and he looked askance at Jon.

“Yes.”

“The one who _poisoned_ you?”

“Martin, it is far too early in the morning for technophobic paranoia.” Jon did not hold Dr. Cane responsible for the degradation of the equipment. She would have corrected it had he consented to a second implant. His choice of cybernetics was an exercise of bodily autonomy that was… important to him, as he had no such autonomy as a child. His feelings towards his grandmother were complicated and he understood the decision she made as his medical proxy on the night her daughter-in-law died, but he wasn’t sure he would have chosen it.

Martin clearly disagreed – and perhaps his ‘paranoia’ was justified considering what he had recently endured but- “I’m not technophobic.”

Jon said nothing.

“I’m _not_.”

“I heard you the first time.”

A tense moment of silence followed and then- “I’m the one who taught _you_ how to use the transcription program, in case you forgot.” Martin shifted in the seat next to Jon with an indignant huff, bumping his left knee against the low slope of the glove compartment.

“Yes, and I’m sure you were surprised I did not simply have a USB stick in my finger.”

“Th- that was _Tim_ ,” Martin gasped, seemingly shocked that Jon have overheard one of their unfortunate jokes at his expense – hardly the worst thing someone had said about him. But the archive wasn’t soundproof. And he did use the break room. “I would never- I have _never_ said anything like that.”

“I know, Martin.” Of course, it was Tim. The joke was, after all, not very funny. 

“ _Do_ you?” Jon was surprised by the tension in Martin’s voice, wondering if this new, more emotive state was the result of his experience – or if he had always been this way, but Jon had never spent any sustained time with him. He decided to ignore it but was not given the option when Martin went on to say, “It’s just- I just- I feel like we got off on the wrong foot, because I said something really stupid the first day we met-”

“Martin,” Jon pulled into the visitors’ lot of Dr. Cane's practice, shifting the car into ‘park’, “The caliber of your work is unsatisfactory. This is the extent of my issue with you.” He turned off the ignition and held the keys in one hand. He could feel Martin looking at him, but he was reluctant to meet that too-earnest gaze. “Within the first week of working together, I knew that it had come from a place of ignorance and was not a reflection of your beliefs." Regardless, he wouldn't classify people who fetishize or dehumanize technologically enhanced individuals as 'technophobic'. 

“Oh.” Martin breathed out the word as if Jon had struck him in the stomach, and he shook his head. “It doesn’t justify what I said. I’m- I was an idiot. And insensitive. You’d just woken up and I-”

“Martin, it’s been two months.” Jon was not interested in listening to his assistant self-flagellate over a mistake that most people wouldn’t even acknowledge was a mistake. “The situation has been clarified. Let’s move on.”

“Right.”

Jon frowned at the digital clock on his dashboard and took the bowl from Martin. Then he got out of the car and walked into the building. Martin accompanied him into the lift and to reception. The interior of Dr. Cane’s offices was disconcertingly ‘vintage’, pastel colours of blue, yellow and white chairs, checkered flooring, and brass lamps. There was a children’s section of the waiting room populated with wooden blocks and a basket of multicoloured strings. It hadn’t changed at all which inevitably triggered, for him, vivid memories of his childhood ‘check ups’.

“You don’t need to be here,” he repeated under his breath, ramrod straight in an uncomfortable teal blue chair, the bowl tightly clasped in his lap. “You can wait outside- or by the car, if you prefer.”

“I’m alright,” Martin replied, his broad shoulder pressing into the corner of Jon’s seat, “I mean, if you don’t mind me being here. Jon?”

“It’s fine.” There was a watercolour painting on the far wall, a spider’s web in cheerful, bleeding shades of red and green, blue, and orange. The threads of web dropped and sloped in smooth lines across the painting, dew drops clinging to the strands. But there was no spider. Was there anything more unsettling than a fully formed web without a spider?

God, he hated this place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the lovely comments!! <3 I hope to respond to all of them shortly... please know that I appreciate each and every person who reads this fic!  
> I must also state the usual disclaimers: I'm not an expert in the fields of information technology and nanotechnology, but I'm very excited about it. I'm a literature major bumbling my way through the science. All mistakes are my own!


	5. Conferral

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon and Martin pay a visit to Dr. Cane.

“Jon.”

There was a measure of familiarity in Dr. Cane’s voice as she emerged from her office to greet him, thin and tall. Beneath a white coat monogrammed with her name, she wore a high-waisted khaki skirt and button-up blouse reminiscent of Audrey Hepburn. Her eyebrows were shaved, heightening the shape of her forehead and the smoothness of her black skin. Curly white-blonde hair was cropped close to her head, off-set by garnet earrings. Unlike Jon, who could pass for mid-thirties on a good day, she didn’t appear to have aged at all in two decades.

“Hello, Dr. Cane.” Jon stood up to greet her, gripping the bowl in both hands.

“I’m not taking referrals at this time.” Her brown eyes slid from him to Martin, lips turning up into a smile. “But I might be willing to make an exception for you.” Jon was well-aware this was the only reason he obtained an appointment. She extended her hand, revealing dark red nails. “Annabelle Cane. And you are?”

“Uh, I’m- um, M-Martin,” he stood up next to Jon and greeted her, “I’m not a referral. I’m just… er…”

“He’s a colleague.”

“Ah,” Dr. Cane released Martin’s hand, “You belong to the Magnus Institute.”

“Um, yes.”

Dr. Cane hummed in response, scrutinizing Martin with a slight tilt of her chin. Jon cleared his throat. “I need to speak with you about this,” he said, voice tight and careful. He gave her the evidence.

“You brought me a gift?” Dr. Cane ran her fingers along the edge of the bowl, “How thoughtful.” Examining it with one hand on the lid, Dr. Cane peered into the bowl and seemed amused by what she found. Without another word, she led them out of the reception area and down a long corridor, past the examination rooms to what appeared to be a workspace, clean white walls and linoleum floor, large white tables, computer monitors, and several large machines illuminated by fluorescent lighting. The equipment must have cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, not the sort of thing one expected to find in a typical private practice. Dr. Cane pulled out a black stool in front of one of the machines and turned it on. Retrieving a thin pair of tongs from a nearby drawer, she took off the lid of the bowl and plucked at the bottom. She opened the chamber with her other hand and tapped the tongs on a small round metal plate. Then she closed it and informed them she would be turning on the vacuum pump. 

Jon exchanged a look with Martin. He knew very little about scanning electron microscopes, apart from the fact that the restoration team at the National Gallery had recently bought an SEM to analyze paint.

“Jane Prentiss?” Dr. Cane did not respond, as she turned two dials and the computer monitors flickered on. The machine made a low hissing sound and Jon stepped closer, pressing, “Was she your patient?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell, no.” She closed the lid and set the bowl aside. Then she adjusted the detector, accelerating voltage, spot size, beam and video scope. Jon didn’t understand most of what she said but she gestured them forward with a crook of her fingers as an image filled up the screen. It was a cluster of… nanorobots? They looked nothing like Dr. Cane’s spiders, each one longer, no abdomen or eyes, with dozens of small protrusions like the legs of a millipede interlocking with the others. There was no space between them, hooked together so tightly.

Jon shoved his glasses further onto his nose. One grain of silvery ‘sand’ consisted of dozens, if not hundreds, of microscopic nanorobots. “God, there must be millions of them in a single strand.”

“ _Millions_?”

“Martin, you were exposed over a week ago,” Jon muttered, voice low in an effort to maintain the illusion of a confidential discussion, “I’m sure you’d be dead by now if you were infected.” Harriet Lee ‘disappeared’ within forty-eight hours of encountering Jane Prentiss. Timothy Hodge’s whereabouts were currently unknown.

“Jane Prentiss is still walking around…” Martin protested in a low hiss, a point which Jon acknowledged with a grimace, “Or… shuffling around, leaking everywhere… _Christ_.” Martin bent over, bracing his hands on his knees, and Jon awkwardly reached out to pat him on the shoulder three times before withdrawing.

“If Jane Prentiss is the original host,” Dr. Cane chimed in good-naturedly, magnifying the microscope further, “Perhaps she is expelling the nanorobots periodically to extend her own lifespan. It is possible they are programmed to recognize her...”

Jon’s brow furrowed. “If they consume carbon, they don’t need human hosts.”

“And yet...”

“Why would you build something that _eats_ its host?” he demanded, “How many patients have died?”

“I couldn't tell you. _This_ is not my work.”

“You’re lying.”

Dr. Cane turned away from Jon to face the monitor, “Contrary to your belief, I am not the only one capable of implanting nanorobots in the human body…” she drawled, a thread of amusement in her voice, “There is a whole specialty for it these days. I could name half a dozen people who-”

“ _Whose is it?_ ”

“Tone, Jon,” Dr. Cane replied with an imperious arch of her brow, “May I remind you I am under no obligation to answer your questions? Do not abuse my hospitality.” Jon bit down on a scoffing response, catching Martin’s pleading look out of the corner of his eye.

“Apologies,” Jon ground the word out between his teeth, and he did not mean it.

Dr. Cane took the single word as a concession and went on, as if the aside had never taken place, to explain, “No scientist would create a molecular machine without a control mechanism to prevent the sort of ecophagic catastrophe you’re insinuating, not to mention the more mundane threats of interference or abuse. The Hive is derivative, so the worms do have this mechanism. Perhaps they can only convert sugars, proteins, fats in the human body into an energy source but are otherwise restricted in the consumption of carbon.”

“The Hive? Jane Prentiss?”

Dr. Cane turned off the monitor and stood to face them. “The Hive is a collective, of which Jane Prentiss may be a part. They have corrupted this technology. In their efforts to create a ‘hive mind’ at the nanorobotic level, they’ve cobbled together something that self-replicates and self-sustains with no external directive. Its only goal is to proliferate. It is no smarter than a protozoan or a tapeworm.”

 _The Hive._ Jon had never heard of this so-called collective. “That doesn’t mean you weren’t involved…” She was familiar with the Hive and its projects, information that he was sure didn't come from looking at a microscope for less than ten seconds. She knew more than she was saying.

“Oh Jon,” Dr. Cane sighed, sliding her hands in the pockets of her coat, “You should know better. There is nothing my spiders do that I am not aware of, nothing that I do not control. This mess-” she indicated the now blank screen, “-is antithetical to my life’s work.”

Jon supposed he could see the logic in that. There was a difference between a nanorobotic organism under the active directive of a doctor or a scientist, and one that received no new input, repeating the basic commands inherent in its programming: consume and reproduce. He supposed that _was_ no different than an organic parasite. This was what Jon wanted to focus on, what he understood despite the intricacy of the technology.

 _You should know better_. There was nothing in the words – or their delivery – to suggest that this was anything other than the condescending disappointment of a healthcare professional with a stubborn (former?) patient. He bit down on a nauseating swell of anxiety, a knot of fear that he didn’t care to take out and examine in public. His heart pounded in his chest and he clenched his fists, digging his nails into his palms to stifle the trembling. He wasn’t sure what was happening to his body or why this clean, clinical room felt so smothering, suffocating. He couldn’t breathe.

“Jon?”

He heard Martin’s voice as a distant echo, as if he was submerged under water. Jon felt himself swaying forward but he couldn’t seem to concentrate, or control it, nostrils flaring as he sucked in breath after breath. He clinched his teeth against the sounds that wanted to crawl out of his throat, and he felt hands on his arms. He looked up and found his vision wholly eclipsed by Martin’s face. There were freckles on his nose and forehead, light brown against his skin, varied in size and placement. He examined the colour of his eyes and compared it to a catalogue of green things: dried basil, white grapes, oak leaves, grass, marbles, Georgie’s mixing bowl, the jumper. He wore square glasses with thick gray frames and a bridge across the nose. Jon had always thought they were black, but the color was, upon closer inspection, a dark gray. They were the sort of glasses Jon hated. He preferred thin wire and rimless, as unobtrusive as possible. But Martin’s choice of eyewear suited his face. Proportionate.

The static faded from his mind, the symptoms subsiding as he focused his energy on categorizing the components of Martin’s face. He regained control over his breathing and oriented himself. Martin was holding his hands, warm and sweaty. It was unpleasant. Jon wrinkled his nose and pulled away, cored out and weary. He couldn’t even summon the strength to be embarrassed for having had an episode in front of _people_.

“Thank you for your… time, Dr. Cane,” he said, each syllable pronounced in a careful monotone.

“I always have time for you, Jon.”

Dr. Cane returned the sealed bowl to Martin, alongside her business card, and Jon did not ask if she had kept the samples in her microscope. He suspected she would have lied if she said ‘no’ and he wasn’t sure he cared. He wanted to leave. In the parking lot, Martin offered to drive in his soft, tentative manner and Jon agreed, pressing two fingers to the bridge of his nose as a headache set in just behind his eyes. Neither of them spoke on the drive back to the Institute, and Jon ignored Martin’s unsubtle glances as they stepped into the lobby and passed through security.

“Jon!” Rosie caught up to them in front of the lift, seconds away from retreating to the archive, “I left you a message,” she gave a meaningful look to the Institute-issued mobile in his hand which he’d yet to switch back on, “Elias wants to speak with you in his office. He asked for you to come up as soon as you got back.”

“Jon isn’t feeling well-”

“It’s not a problem,” he cut his assistant off and held out a hand. Martin looked at it for a long moment, bewildered, before he realized what it was Jon was asking for. “I’m sure you have some work to be doing.” Taking the bowl under one arm, Jon directed Martin towards the lift. The doors closed on Martin’s anxious face and Jon grimaced at Rosie. “Thank you for letting me know.” She nodded and walked away.

Jon stepped into the lift and took it to the fifth floor, retracing his steps of the previous week. He was sore and tired, and even the sight of that imposing black ball camera outside his boss’ office did not bother him. He stepped into the room and closed the door at Elias’ request, sitting down across from the doctor with the bowl in his lap.

“Jonathan.” Elias gave Jon the full weight of his attention and dissatisfaction, hands folded loosely on the desk. “You arranged a meeting with Annabelle Cane concerning an Institute matter without prior authorization. That is a violation of your contract.”

“I’m sure you could make a case for that.” Jon remembered the agreements he had signed concerning privacy, confidentiality, intellectual property and patents, and he did not explicitly break the conditions of those agreements. The contents of bowl did not belong to the Magnus Institute and were recovered from Martin’s personal residence. He chose to give those contents to Jon, and Jon chose not to log them.

Elias stared at him, lips a flat line. “You also violated our security protocols by knowingly accepting and keeping an unstable substance in the archive without the knowledge and written consent of your staff…” he continued, gray eyes sharpening on the dismay flickering across Jon’s expression, the tension in the hunch of his shoulders as the words sank in, “…and without implementing the containment procedures which you are, by law, required to adhere to.” A muscle twitched in Jon’s jaw. “You put this entire Institute at risk – and then you chose to drive the substance across London with no additional safety measures taken beyond the use of a _Tupperware bowl_. Is that correct?”

“It isn’t Tupperware,” Jon replied, “But the… rest of the statement is correct.”

“And?”

Jon took a steadying breath. “I was under the impression that Jane Prentiss was not a priority for the Institute.” Elias had certainly made no great strides to improve security beyond replacing Martin’s RFID implant. No other changes had been made.

“I looked at the security footage myself and as I told you, the data was corrupted.” Apparently, there was an unspecified ‘error’ in the transfer of the video feed to the cloud, and the Institute was missing two hours of security footage.

Jon leaned forward in his seat. “And you don’t find that _suspect?_ ”

“Frankly, Jon, your actions of late have been far more suspect than this unsubstantiated claim of _infiltration._ ”

“Martin gave a statement. His RFID chip was compromised.”

Elias arched a brow. “Martin is hardly the most reliable source, as I’m sure you are aware.”

Jon scowled. It was one thing for _him_ to criticize his assistant for his subpar contributions to their archival work, but Martin was of sound mind. His statement was detailed, coherent, and supported by evidence. “He didn’t _imagine_ it,” Jon replied, tapping the lid of the bowl, “This is his proof.”

“That isn’t proof,” Elias spoke over Jon’s wordless protest, “If Martin had brought the bowl directly to me, we might have salvaged some data. As it was, you left it in a contaminated box in your office for over a week and took no measures to preserve the sample. It is useless.”

Jon was incensed. “Annabelle Cane did not find it useless.”

“You do not work for Annabelle Cane. You work for _me_.” Elias stood up and pushed back his chair, stepping around his desk in a smooth, fluid movement. “And the next time you consider flouting my Institute’s policies to serve your own vendetta, I advise you to reconsider if you value this job.” Elias held out his hand for the bowl and Jon reluctantly gave it to him. He watched as his boss made a call and brought in two unfamiliar scientists in protective gear who removed the bowl from the office, carrying it to parts unknown. Jon knew that would happen.

He didn’t see why he had to sit here and watch it, and as the office door closed, he glared up at Elias. “Are we finished?”

“Almost,” Elias adjusted one of his silver cufflinks as he spoke. His white coat was draped over the back of his chair. “You are not a doctor, Jonathan. You are not a scientist. Do not confuse your subjective experience with that of a trained professional.”

Jon glanced away. He was afraid he wouldn’t be able to mask how utterly infuriated he was with the doctor’s affectation. “Understood.”

“Good.” Elias smiled, Jon could hear it in his voice, “If you pull a stunt like that again, I will fire you. Then I will have you arrested. Are we clear?”

“Yes.”

“Excellent.”

Elias dismissed him shortly after and Jon made a miserable trudge to the lift, which he took down to the archive. There was a certain comfort that stemmed from stepping into the basement, knowing that he was as far away from Elias Bouchard as possible without digging a hole under the building. To his surprise, the lobby was not empty as Martin was sitting in one of the chairs left against the wall for guests. He stood up the moment he saw Jon, who bore the undisguised concern in his assistant’s face with a discomfited grunt of recognition.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes.” Jon started down the corridor towards his office and Martin followed him.

“Did Elias take the bowl?”

“Yes.”

A pause. Then, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

Another pause. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

Jon reached the threshold of his office, leaning against the frame momentarily as he opened the door. All he really wanted was to be alone, but he turned to face Martin all the same. He tried to smile. “Tea would be lovely. Thank you.”

Martin smiled back.


	6. Distortion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martin thinks about Jon. Sasha meets Michael for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit to TheRustyQuill for Martin's unfinished poem in this chapter. cw for descriptions of blood and goo in the second part of the chapter.

Martin thought about Jon.

It had been three days since they met Dr. Cane which was… uncomfortable. Martin didn’t like her. He wasn’t sure what she did to Jon, but she did _something._ And he felt guilty about letting Jon go to Elias’ office by himself over something that was really Martin’s fault because it was _his_ bowl of parasitic robot worms. He considered trying to explain himself to Elias, so he wouldn’t blame Jon, but Tim thought it was a bad idea. He said there was nothing good to come out of talking to ‘that weasel’, especially since Jon hadn’t been fired, or even suspended. Then Martin felt guilty about letting Tim talk him out of it because he _was_ a little bit afraid of Elias- was he being a coward? Looking for an excuse not to do the right thing? Why else would he have mentioned it to Tim instead of just doing it, you know? Sasha told him Jon was unlikely to ‘appreciate the gesture of solidarity’ which was probably true.

It didn’t make him feel better. The only thing he _did_ end up doing was telling Tim and Sasha what Dr. Cane had said about the Hive and their ‘corrupted’ nanorobots. He didn’t mention what happened to Jon. It was private. Sasha decided to dig into Dr. Cane and try to find out more information about the Hive. Tim said there was no point in doing extra work because they couldn’t fight off something they couldn’t see.

“It feels like the sort of thing the _government_ should know about,” Martin sighed, closing his laptop. “They could help.”

“You don’t think they _know_?” Tim replied, craning his neck back as he rocked in his chair, “Infecting people with killer robot bugs is a wet dream for the government. I bet they’re all over that.” Tim also believed that the Institute’s donors were ‘probably into some shady shit’ but investigating _those people_ could get them all fired.

Martin didn’t really care about donors. He was worried about Jon, even though Jon was acting like everything was normal. That obviously wasn’t true, or Martin wouldn’t still be living in the archive, sleeping on a fold-out cot that creaked _so loud_ whenever he tried to roll over. But Jon didn’t want to talk about Annabelle Cane, or Jane Prentiss, or nanorobots. Martin tried to bring it up – _twice_ – and it didn’t go over well either time. So now he was sitting in the archive, going through files, making phone calls, and wishing Jon would come out of his office.

“Martin?”

He flinched, elbow sliding off the closed lid of his laptop. “Yep, yes? Sasha, hi.” She was standing right next to him, smiling.

“Hi.” She glanced to the swinging door of the archive as Tim sauntered out, “Thinking about someone in particular?”

“Um,” Martin almost choked – on nothing, on _air_ , “No, nope. Why would you say that?”

“You seem a little… moony lately.”

“Oh,” he swallowed thickly and hoped it wasn’t an audible _gulp_ , “No. Just… nanorobots. That’s… about it.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

“Okay.” Sasha smiled and changed the subject. “Well, Tim and I going for lunch. Want to come?”

“To the canteen?”

“Yep.”

“Sure.” Martin didn’t think the canteen was _that_ much safer than going out for lunch – especially since Jane Prentiss had already proven she could get in, but he still felt more comfortable here. He stood up from his desk and followed Sasha out of the archive and into the empty corridor. But instead of walking towards the lift, Sasha started walking in the other direction, past the breakroom. “Why are we going this way?”

“Jon’s here,” she said, “We’ll invite him too.”

“Oh.” Martin let out a huff of laughter, “I… don’t think he’ll be interested.”

“No?” Sasha knew as well as he did that Jon had never accepted a single luncheon invitation, “Probably not, but there’s only one way to find out.” The door to Jon’s office was shut and Sasha knocked twice before walking in.

“I’m in the- ah, Sasha, hello.” Sasha leaned against the door and Martin peered over her shoulder. Jon was sitting at his desk. Today he was wearing a plum-coloured sweater vest over a white shirt, and the corners of his collar were lopsided, one folded up and one down. He looked tired. He always looked tired lately. The purple looked nice on him. “And Martin. To what do I own the interruption?”

“We’re going to lunch,” Sasha ignored the undercurrent of sarcasm in his voice, or maybe she didn’t hear it, “Do you want to come?”

“Ah.” Jon glanced down at his laptop and shook his head, “I… I have a lot of work to do.”

“We’re going to the canteen,” Martin added hopefully, “It’s a really short commute.”

“I… appreciate the offer,” Jon said, “However, if you are all leaving, someone should stay here to keep an eye on the archive.”

“Right,” Sasha replied, “Because we’re _so_ busy…”

Jon raised an eyebrow. “Are you complaining about your workload, Sasha? I’m sure I could find you something more to do-”

“Not complaining.”

“-perhaps a book report on Greek mythology?” Jon was teasing her. Martin stared at him.

“Seriously?” Sasha retorted, “In the immortal words of Aristophanes: βάλλ' εἰς κόρακας.”

Was that an inside joke? Did Jon have inside jokes with Sasha? In _Greek_? Martin had no idea what was going on, but he felt awkward intruding on the moment. Sasha glanced at him and he blurted out, “You speak Greek?”

“No,” Sasha laughed, “I learned that phrase especially for Jon.”

“I’m sure it’s workplace appropriate,” Jon replied in his least hostile monotone. He almost sounded… pleased.

“Nope, which is why we’re going to leave before you translate it. Come on, Martin.”

“Um.”

Sasha paused in the doorway, one hand on Martin’s elbow, and turned back to Jon. “You should go to lunch when we get back,” she said, peering at him over the rim of her glasses, “You can’t live on tea – not even Martin’s tea.”

“Sasha…” Martin was embarrassed.

To his surprise, Jon smiled- well, sort of. His lips twitched. “Quite. Enjoy your lunch. Give my best to Tim.”

“Will do. Bye, Jon.” Sasha pulled the door shut and led Martin down the corridor towards the lift. He spent those precious seconds willing his face to cool down, unclenching his fingers, and _not_ thinking about Jon. He managed to avoid Tim teasing him over having a crush, and lunch was good. Tim and Sasha joked around a lot, argued about movies, took bets on who Rosie might be dating, and tried to include Martin. It was nice.

Jon left his office around half past two (hopefully to eat something), and Martin brought him a cup of tea at four o’clock. Sasha and Tim went home an hour after that, and Martin bought a sandwich from the canteen before it closed. Then he washed up to the bathroom and carried his laptop into the backroom. He spent a couple hours streaming some mindless television, sitting cross-legged on his cot, but he couldn’t concentrate. He tried to do a little writing – some poetry, a to-do list, an email to his mum which sat in his ‘drafts’ folder for weeks. The archive was quiet at night, and sometimes it got lonely. But it gave Martin a lot of time to _think_.

 _My heart leaps up when I behold blossoms  
On the springtime breeze_  
 _  
_Martin drummed his fingers on the edge of the keyboard, staring at the blinking cursor on the screen. It wasn’t the same as writing the words out by hand- there was something really satisfying about scratching out a line of poetry, not just deleting it. At least with a notebook, you could go back to your old material… Martin shut off the computer, sitting up slowly. He winced as the cot screeched and squealed, reaching over the edge of his bed to the supply shelf where he’d tucked away his notebooks, his favourite mug, and a bag of caramel sweets.

He wrote out the first two lines, reading them out loud before he sounded out the next part of the stanza. “On the springtime breeze,” Martin repeated, “Blowing hither, twisting yon… blowing… flight… floral flight-”

Someone knocked on the door, startling Martin into drawing a straight black line across the page. Oh God. She found him. Jane Prentiss was- “ _Martin?_ ”

“Jon?” Oh, thank god. Wait, no- fuck.

_“May I have a word?”_

“No!” Martin gasped, before he realized what he was saying… to Jon of all people. “I mean, yes- of course, just- just a second! Sorry!” He grabbed his notebook and shoved it into the crevice between his cot and the shelves, stumbling off the bed in search of trousers. The clothes he’d worn earlier were crumpled on the floor and Martin yanked the trousers on over his boxers, fastened them, and shook out his jumper before pulling it over his head. The collar and the hem of his t-shirt stuck out from either side, but he knew how Jon felt about… looking too… _casual_ in the archive. He already had a hand on the doorknob before he realized he wasn’t wearing socks – oh well, too late, hopefully Jon wouldn’t look at his feet.

_“Is this a bad time?”_

“No!” Martin yanked the door open mid-protest, which meant he ended up yelling in Jon’s face, mottled and wide-eyed. He tried to remember to breathe, closing his eyes for a moment before he smiled and spoke again, calmly, “No, not a bad time. I was just… uh, writing… researching… doing some research… hi, Jon.”

“Martin.” Jon’s expression was blank, but his eyebrows practically disappeared into his hair. “I apologise for disturbing you. I understand it’s late.”

“Not disturbing, it’s no problem. I’m still up… obviously.” It was only eight-thirty at night which _would_ be late for a workday but, Martin had learned, wasn’t very late for Jon. At least twice a week Martin saw the light under his office door at ten, eleven o’clock at night. Where did he sleep? Did he sleep?

“Right.”

Martin regretted what he’d said when he felt Jon take in his full appearance, his bare toes curling against the cold floor. God, this was embarrassing. “So, um, what’s… up? Do you need something?” _What’s up?_ Why did he say that?

“Ah, no,” Jon said, “And even if I did, I wouldn’t ask you while you’re… off work, as it were.” Right. This was like Jon visiting him ‘at home’ in the middle of the night. How weird would that be? If he _was_ at home, he’d probably invite him in… because if he was coming all that way, the least Martin could do was be a good host. But this wasn’t home. It was still work. “I wanted to let you know that I’m leaving for the night.”

“Oh.” Martin nodded, “Um, okay. Thanks.”

Jon hesitated for a moment, “And you, er, you have everything you need?”

“Umm… yes?” Martin wondered if Jon thought he didn’t own socks, or if something else was the matter. It could be anything.

“Good.”

And that was that. There was one awkward look shared between them, and then Jon seemed to make up his mind about something. He nodded to Martin, turned around, and walked out of the archive. Martin watched him go, and when Jon disappeared through the doors, he shut the door and leaned his forehead against it. He started laughing, breath hot, and wished he had the words to write _this_ feeling down.

He didn’t like Jon for the way he treated Martin specifically. Lately, he’d been nicer which was… confusing but not the point. Jon was a good boss. He was (brutally) honest and smart, and he cared about the work they did. He thought it was important even though the archive was basically a joke to the rest of the Institute. He never asked them to do anything he wouldn’t do, and he respected their time and… yes, okay, he was hard on Martin, but he still gave Martin work to do, hadn’t fired him yet, like he still had expectations that Martin wouldn’t bollocks up _everything_. 

He didn’t expect Jon to take him seriously about the whole Jane Prentiss thing. He was the one who let Martin stay in the archive, and he argued with Elias about better security. And he thought to check on Martin before going home, even though he had a million more important things to worry about, which was… it was nice. So maybe he _did_ like Jon for the way he treated him. Plenty of people were nice, if you weren’t an inconvenience. That didn’t mean they’d stand up to their boss for you, or make a genuine effort to help you feel safer, or check in on you at night. No one had taken care of Martin in a long time, probably not since he was a kid and even then his mum made sure he knew what a burden he was. Jon was doing all this because he was a good boss, not because he actually _liked_ Martin, but it still meant a lot.

“Ugh,” Martin groaned, rubbing at his eyes as he turned away from the door. He pulled off his clothes and settled back into his pajamas, but he forgot what he was doing before he saw Jon. Lying back on the cot, he endured the squealing of the metal, closed his eyes, and replayed the words - Jon's, not his own - over in his head until he fell asleep.

* * *

After work, Sasha got a drink with Tim and then rode the tube from Victoria to Finsbury Park. It was a short walk from the station to her flat, which was located on the third floor of a converted Victorian. It was an old building but well-maintained, with keyless entry remotes and a functioning lift. Sasha liked to take the stairs. She pulled off her shoes as soon as she stepped into the flat, sliding along the smooth wooden floor in a pair of bright yellow socks. She grabbed a box of chocolate rounds and a bottle of water from the kitchen.

Sasha owned a VR treadmill: a large hexagonal platform with interlocking silver plates that shifted under the player’s feet: omnidirectional, no harness. Her parents said it was an eyesore, but Sasha loved it. Wasn’t the whole point of being an adult that she could turn her living room into a game room, and eat biscuits for dinner? Technically she was doing work. She popped a chocolate round into her mouth, logged in, turned on the sensors, pulled on her gloves, and stepped onto the platform, shifting her weight as the system adjusted.

Then she pulled on the headset, vision going dark until the game loaded and opened up with an old-style text adventure screen and the words _Ushanka’s Despair_ appeared in Matrix green lettering against a black backdrop. Contrasting with the simple graphics, sounds overlaid the flickering letters: the distant ringing of a bell – like a church bell – and the sound of a man’s voice, rough and low, whispering over and over again, _the angles cut me when I try to think_. Dark electro music cut in as the menu appeared: initiate program (start), saved data, options.

Sasha had been stuck at Level 26 for three days. The music faded to the hiss of rain striking the roof of a 1990s era tech lab. Black and white linoleum floors, a blackboard and a projector, rows of empty tables and chairs with white desktop computers. Sasha had gone through this room already: she found two unlabeled floppy tasks and a notebook and took pictures of the blackboard. None of the computers worked, and the electricity was out so she couldn’t turn on the light. The storm outside grew louder, and she felt the vibration from the treadmill travel up her legs at the _crack!_ of thunder. She looked out one of the windows, streaked in water, and saw nothing but a swaying oak tree and an empty street. Sometimes she saw a person- or she thought she did, standing in the rain, but the view was always foggy and distorted. The person looked too tall, their proportions blurry and shifting.

Sasha wasn’t sure if it was a character or a bug in the game, and she searched online for a blond figure with long hands but only found a related mention in a post on a schizophrenia support forum by someone named Ivo Lensik. The game wasn’t mentioned, and he never responded to her messages. So maybe it was an obscure easter egg, or a bug. Sasha left the computer lab, stepping into a long, dark corridor that stretched out in both directions. She was looking for a way out. She’d used a bolt-cutter from her inventory to get in the building, and in the time it took her to find the computer lab, the police had showed up and replaced the broken chain, locking her inside.

Sasha had explored every inch of this corridor, full of closed doors, dark corners, peeling tile, and exposed pipes. Pressing her hand to her chest, she pulled up her inventory and a black duffel appeared on the floor. Sasha unzipped the bag and pulled out a heavy, battery-operated torch. Then she put the duffel away and walked down the corridor, shining her light over every crevice, looking for a hint on where to go next. Then she saw the door. Sandwiched between an empty supply closet and a broken water fountain was a thin, red door. It was painted in a swirling design that seemed to be moving if she wiggled the torch. Sasha had been walking up and down this corridor for days and she had never seen this door before; it stood out against the grayscale setting.

She tried the doorknob, an old, bronze oval, and it was warm – but locked. She pressed an ear to the wood, and it seemed to pulse against her skin, eliciting an uncomfortable shiver. There was a soft, slithering sound and a wet thump, which made her think of a bag full of stones. Sasha wasn’t a big fan of monster games, or monsters in general. She liked _Ushanka’s Despair_ for the gothic atmosphere, sure, but it was grounded in real life. This door was all _wrong_ , it made her nauseous to stare at, and it didn’t fit the aesthetic of the game at all. Sasha was unimpressed, and she took stock of her options. She could ignore it, but it might be the only way out of this level.

Sasha knocked.

To her surprise, the door swung open and she took a step back. A dimly lit corridor, but she couldn’t see much beyond a single gas lamp. There was a thin man standing on the threshold, impossibly tall with long, curly blond hair and large hands. His proportions were almost-human.

“I’ve seen you before,” Sasha said, squeezing her flashlight as the patterns of his clothes seemed to swirl. He looked down at her with a wide smile. “You’ve been outside the window, haven’t you? You’re part of the game.”

He laughed, a high-pitched sound that doubled as if coming out of two throats. The audio glitched, and the edges of his skin wobbled as he tilted his head to the side. “Are you sure?”

Sasha frowned. “Are you a player or an NPC?” She shone the light in his face. His pupils didn’t dilate. If she was talking to a real person, his avatar mods were ridiculous. They were giving Sasha a headache. If he was an NPC, he must have been some kind of metaphor, a homage to classic horror games.

“Does it matter?” he mused, a pitchy, melodious sound.

“I want to know if I’m talking to a real person, yeah.”

“Real,” he repeated with a soft laugh, “What a fascinating parameter. Do you consider yourself real?”

“Of course.” 

He smiled. “May I touch your hand?”

“No. What's your name?” Sasha eyed his long, sharp fingers mistrustfully, suspended in the air between them. He retracted his hand slowly, expression unchanged. "If you’re not going to give me any answers, I’m shutting the door.”

“I’m sorry,” he inclined his head, the words halting and careful, each syllable articulated, “You can call me Michael.”

“You don’t look like a Michael,” she said, which made him laugh again, flashing too many teeth. “What do you want?”

“To help.”

“Help with what?”

“The Hive.”

Sasha froze, a trickle of fear sliding down her spine at the Knowing in his voice (voices?). She told herself it might not be the same hive, that for all she knew there was an entity in the game called the Hive. “What do you know about that?”

“More than you.” Grinning, he shrugged narrow shoulders, his entire body rippling, curls spilling and twisting against his shirt, “I want to be friends. May I touch your hand?” he repeated the question, gaze simultaneously steady and shifting.

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t like you.”

Michael chuckled. “Do you want to save them?”

Sasha frowned. “Save who?”

“Jon and Martin and Tim. The Hive is coming for them.”

Her heart sank and she almost dropped the torch, fingers numb and trembling. “Who are you?”

“I am not a _who_.”

“ _What_ are you? Some kind of phishing tool? A virus? A bot?”

A whispery, vibrating sound – a giggle – echoed through the corridor. “Your hand, Sasha.”

“Enough with the bloody hand!” Sasha flinched at the sound of her own name.

Michael’s head bobbed from side to side, contemplative. “Would you prefer another body part?”

“What? No.”

“I want to hold your hand,” Michael said.

“Why?” He didn’t answer, and a silence stretched between them as long as the corridors. If she let it, Sasha had the sinking feeling that it could go on forever. She really wanted to slam the door in Michael’s face, but she couldn’t _risk_ it. “If I let you hold my hand, will you help me save them?”

Michael blinked at her. “Yes.”

“Fine.” What was the worst that could happen? This was a game. If she lost a hand, it would suck but she could still play without it (or restart, but she hated to give up on any game). Sasha held out her hand, jaw clenched and tongue pressed flat to the roof of her mouth. She expected the worst when those bladed fingers slid between hers, but surprisingly enough, it didn’t hurt. It was heavy. It felt sharp but not painful, and clasping the hand felt like holding onto a bag of rocks. That was the sound she heard through the door. Michael’s hands that weren’t hands at all. Suddenly it felt… wrong to think about him as a ‘he’. Michael didn’t feel like a person.

It lasted a few seconds, and then Michael let her go. Sasha looked down at her hand and saw that she was bleeding. Red drops hit the ground between them. She shot Michael a dirty look but when she turned over her hand to see the damage, the blood was gone. There was a laceration across her palm, the skin split down the middle. But there was no blood. It was black, no, green, and something was moving under the skin. Sasha shoved her torch under her armpit and pressed two fingers on either side of the gash, pulling it apart to see the wound better. What was inside… ‘black’ was not the right word, it wasn’t a color, it was nothing… it was… the space between the green numbers, ones and zeros, appearing and disappearing in long strands of binary code.

“We are real,” Michael told her, its cheerful voice penetrating the dissociative fog of realizing _this is not real, none of this is real, it is code_. “And we are not real. We are making and unmaking, existing and nonexisting. We are never what we are. Would you like to Know?”

Sasha squeezed her eyes shut, swallowing a morbid desire to dig her fingers into the gash and pull out the code. Michael’s absurd riddles seemed to stoke the impulse, and she understood now how something like that could become an obsession. “Why? So you can watch me eat computer pieces until I die?” Forcing her gaze away from the mysterious code in her hand, she glared up at Michael, “Is this what you did to Sergey Ushanka?”

It was still smiling. “No.”

“No?”

“We weren’t friends.”

“You drove him insane.”

“Mmm.”

“Are you going to do it to me?”

“Do you want it?”

“ _No_.”

Michael held out its hands, palms up, as if to say _that’s that_. It was such a strange, incongruous gesture for something that looked so monstrous. “Then we should go. There is something for you to see.” The ‘something’ was related to the Hive, but Sasha had to take Michael’s word that stepping into its corridor was the way to save her friends. She pulled a roll of bandages out of her inventory bag and wrapped her hand, ignoring Michael’s bemused gaze, intent yet wavering. She didn’t want any _numbers_ sliding out of her skin, and she didn’t want to look at it anymore. Knotting the bandage into place, Sasha stepped through the red door and followed Michael down a long, winding corridor. It was carpeted in shifting patterns of yellow, wallpaper busy and peeling, illuminated by gas lamps. The visuals were unstable, flickering in and out of code. Sasha blinked: the wallpaper was green. She blinked again: 01001001 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110111 01100001 01101100 01101100 01110000 01100001 01110000 01100101 01110010 00100000 01100111 01110010 01100101 01100101 01101110 00111111 00100000 00001101 00001010 01001110 01101111 00101110 00100000. There were empty paintings and mirrors, no windows or doors. Sasha got distracted reading the code and twice- no, three times, she lost track of Michael in this swirling place.

Eventually, they reached a door. This one was yellow. Michael opened it with a playful flourish and Sasha – eager to get the hell out of the corridor – stepped through and onto a paved street. She spun in a slow circle, trying to get her bearings, and she squinted at a nearby road sign: _Azalea Close_. It wasn’t a Russian name, but the game played fast and loose with the authenticity of the language. There were rows of houses and, as Michael led her down the road, the houses shifted to buildings that were in good repair – except for the one at the end of the street. Its windows were boarded up with metal sheets, and it was covered in dirt and graffiti. But the door was open, swinging. Michael walked inside and Sasha followed. It was dark and dusty, and the floor groaned under her feet. The shadows seemed to swallow up the light from her torch.

There were small round tables, stools, shoved against the rotting walls, and crammed into corners of the room, and Sasha realized it was a pub. Used to be, anyway. The beam of light bounced off the bar, where she noticed a large black box, illuminated in faint green light. Sasha walked over to the box and opened it. Inside, she found a builder’s toolkit, a fire extinguisher, a steel cylinder with a blindingly bright light inside, and a gallon-sized container of sulfuric acid. She opened her mouth to ask Michael what she was supposed to do with these items when she heard it – a low groan coming from the other side of the room. The sound was guttural and wet.

Sasha turned her torch towards the noise, and saw the thing slumped against the wall. But it was so unrecognizable that she had to walk closer – and that was when she noticed the sludge on the floor. It was thick and silvery, puddles and trails of fluid and chunkier, indefinable pieces. Sasha bit into her knuckle to stifle the scream, nose wrinkling at the smell. It smelled like waste. She edged around the puddles of _goo_ and edged closer to the body. She could see now that it _was_ a body. It was still wearing clothes, denim and a button-down shirt. But it was missing… parts. There weren’t any fingers on the left hand, and the nose and cheeks were caved in. It looked gray and slick and… squishy in the way human bodies weren’t supposed to look. She couldn’t see any bones at all except what made up the head, and even that was misshapen. She gasped, and the head swung towards her with a wet sound. The skin was moving. She remembered what Martin said- how he described her, Jane Prentiss.

Sasha stumbled away from the man but the movement was a mistake – suddenly, the entire body flopped over and began to slide across the floor, agonizingly slowly, but still _coming_. Pieces kept… coming off, bursting against the pressure of the wood floor against swollen skin, flooding the air with the same _stench_. And she knew without even running a test that whoever that man _was_ , he was gone. Whatever was controlling his body, it was looking for a new host. Sasha staggered into the bar, raising wide eyes to stare at Michael. It stared back at her with a blank expression. _Waiting._

It wasn’t going to help her.

Sasha turned to the box of items on the bar. The toolkit was useless, the fire extinguisher- no, CO2 had no effect on nanorobots. The glowing cylinder? Sasha ran her hand over it and a small icon popped into view:

_Item: Electromagnetic Pulse Bomb_   
_Range: 6.5 kilometers_   
_Delayed Release: 5 seconds_

“An EMP, are you kidding me?” Sasha muttered. Nanorobots were so small there wouldn’t be enough of a current flow to damage them. It might have a chance if they were in their visible-to-the-human-eye form, clumped up into skinny gray worms. That wasn’t what this was. The wet, shuffling sound got closer and Sasha grabbed the gallon of sulfuric acid. She unwound the bandage from her hand and wrapped it around her mouth and nose, then she unscrewed the lid. She walked across the room as carefully as she could, stopped about a foot away from the crawling sludge-man, and she threw the acid on him. She stretched out her arms and dumped it out on his hand, his torso, his legs and arms, every inch of him. He didn’t scream or make any sound at all. He stopped moving. Turning her face away, Sasha emptied the container and threw it aside.

Sasha backed away, turned and walked out of the bar, kicking off her shoes on the threshold. She didn’t know if she’d spilled any acid on them, but she didn’t want to take the chance. She’d rather walk around barefoot. “I should have put the host- _him_ in an oil drum if I wanted to kill them all,” Sasha muttered, breathing shallow through the gauze around her mouth. “It takes two days for a human body to dissolve, but who knows for someone- some _thing_ that far gone?” The body was already falling apart, the burns wouldn’t hurt it. Sulfuric acid broke down metal and carbon, oxidizing it into CO2. It wouldn’t be safe to breathe in there, and she sure as hell wouldn’t light a match.

Sasha didn’t know how long she stood outside, eyes watering and mouth sore, but when she turned to walk back in, Michael was gone. The body lay on the floor, but it was glowing now – green. And when Sasha waved her hand over the corpse, it triggered a pop-out window, an image of his driver’s licence. She tried not to look at the face. _HODGE, TIMOTHY ANDREW._ She didn’t remember what happened next, or how she ended up back in the computer lab. It was only when she recognized where she was that she realized she could get out. She yanked off her headset. She could still smell the acid in her nose and throat. Early morning sunlight streamed into the living room through thin curtains – _how many hours did she spend in that game?_ \- and Sasha stumbled off the treadmill. She peeled off her gloves and threw them on the sofa.

Her palm was bleeding.

She didn’t even bother rummaging around the bathroom for a bandage. She grabbed her jacket, her phone and keys from the kitchen counter, and walked out of the building. She called a ride-share and went to the Institute.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few notes. The ancient Greek phrase Sasha uses is a famous insult: βάλλ' εἰς κόρακας ("throw yourself to the crows").  
> The binary code that Sasha is 'reading' says: is the wallpaper green? no.  
> I am firmly of the belief that Sasha and Jon are kindred spirits, not only as nerds but also as risk takers (they shake hands with some shady folks). I adore them both for this.  
> Finally, I have to say that my favourite avatar (apart from our beloved Jon) is the Distortion, and I thought that virtual reality would be a fun space for the Spiral to manifest, because the rules of our world don't apply. I hope that you enjoyed Michael's appearance as much as I enjoyed writing it. <3 Thank you, as always, for reading.


	7. Symbiosis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon learns more about Michael, Polish grocery stores, and Jane Prentiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for brief mentions of cultural assimilation (in the context of immigration) and love bombing (in the context of manipulative/cult behaviour).

Jon was afraid.

His grandmother bought him a string game after the accident. It was almost identical to the one Dr. Cane kept in the basket in her office: a long multi-coloured cord and a book with instructions on how to create shapes: teacups and stars, brooms and towers, and so on. It was important, the doctor said, to refine his motor skills. Sometimes Jon would play the game and he would try to make the rug or the six-mountain string, and instead his fingers would form the spiderweb. It was strange to have muscle memory to create a shape he never learned. Sometimes he would sleepwalk at night, and he would wake up in new places, mid-task. Sometimes he was conscious. He had a faint memory of a wooden door, and a childhood bully whose name he could no longer remember…

Even now, he couldn’t be sure how much of it was real. But he remembered the fear of being aware, of knowing his body was not entirely his own. No one else seemed to notice – he had no friends, no one but his grandmother – and he was afraid to mention it. The incidents stopped by the time he finished primary school, and he might have dreamed the whole thing- residual trauma from the car accident or losing his mother at such a formative age.

 _You should know better._ An unanticipated trigger. An innocuous statement on technology and control, and suddenly he was eight years old again and trapped in his own body. It was embarrassing.

Did Jane Prentiss feel trapped? When did she start to notice that her decisions were not her own, that control of her body was slowly being eroded and replaced with something else? It bothered Jon that he could not locate her statement and – more importantly – that she might have come to them seeking help. An entire building full of scientists and engineers and doctors, and no one noticed this woman? Or spoke to her? And what in God’s name was the Hive? Jon had found no additional information on that so-called collective, and now Dr. Cane was not taking his calls. He wondered if Elias had given her a message, or if she had another reason to ignore him.

Sasha was waiting for him when he arrived at work. She was sitting on the ground outside his office with Martin, holding a cup of tea. She explained to him her encounter with ‘Michael’. Initially she thought he was a character in the role-playing game she was investigating, but now she seemed sure that it was the avatar of someone who knew how to manipulate the conditions of the game and who held sufficient knowledge about the Institute to 1) identify her colleagues by name and 2) create a simulation involving one of their former statement-givers. Timothy Hodge – the real Timothy – was still missing.

“What do you think?”

Jon glanced at the transcript of Sasha’s account on his computer. “I… don’t really know.” He believed Sasha’s account of the events and had little to add on the topic of virtual reality. It didn’t appeal to him. “Sulfuric acid is troubling as a ‘solution’.”

“I know,” Sasha grimaced, looking down at her lap. “I felt like a hitman. But Timothy Hodge was dead, Jon, at least this virtual version of him. There was no way he would have recovered from what happened to him,” and it sounded as if she had no alternative, “I wouldn’t- not even in a game, I wouldn’t throw acid on a living person.”

“I am not judging you, Sasha.” It sounded as if she was judging herself – in retrospect. “It is good information to pass on to the researchers. They have a sample.” Jon had also been looking into containment measures, on the slim chance there was something left of Jane Prentiss to save, should the nanorobots be successfully extracted.

“And Michael?”

“I defer to you on that topic. Do you believe it wants to help us?”

Sasha pursed her lips thoughtfully, before nodding. “Yes. But I don’t think it’s altruism. It could be the avatar of a competing company, or a hacktivist with a grudge… a disgruntled ex-member of the Hive? If this ‘collective’ is looking for an edge in biotech, or to steal patents, that could be reason enough to want to stop them.”

“Indeed.” If they knew anything about the Hive or what Jane Prentiss was looking for at the Magnus Institute, that would tell them how to prepare for the (apparently) impending attack. Jon wondered why Jane Prentiss targeted Martin. Was he simply in the wrong place at the wrong time? That was typical for Martin. There was nothing in the archive itself that would be of interest to her. It contained information, hard copy documents, not materials. He found it suspect that ‘Michael’ claimed the Hive was 'coming for' them. He didn’t understand _why_.

“I’ve been thinking about this job,” Sasha admitted, rubbing the back of her neck with one hand, “It’s dangerous. There are a lot of… scared people, unexplained side effects, dysfunctional tech, and it never gets reported. It gets shoved in a box down here and forgotten. It makes me wonder if Elias really wants a functional archive.”

“What would be the alternative?” If it wasn’t about digitizing the archive, then why were they here? Jon realized it was less of a rhetorical question than he thought – because he wanted an answer. What was this job? What was the Magnus Institute? What did they spend their money on, and what would he find in Prototype Storage?

“I’m not sure,” she said, “I guess that’s why I don’t want to quit.”

Jon offered Sasha a week off from work, and she agreed to take three days plus the weekend. Then he sent a request for five gallons of sulfuric acid to Elias. Pressing the heels of his palms against his forehead, Jon leaned back into his chair. Not for the first time, he wondered why he’d taken this job. He was out of his depth, and he didn’t have the credentials to give him any leverage with Annabelle Cane or Elias. The only useful information he could hope to glean from the archive would be Jane Prentiss’ statement which he could not find, but in the interim he reviewed the notes of Dr. Lionel Elliot on a clinical trial documenting the effect of smoking on cybernetic lungs.

Further research into the life and work of Dr. Elliot revealed that his previous work was in humanoid robotics, not cybernetics. He was employed by Denikin Labs before abruptly quitting after three months. He later accepted a research position with the Magnus Institute where he remained for the next ten years.

“According to Tim,” Jon said, “Dr. Elliot retired in March of last year. He left no forwarding address in London, which suggests that he is disinclined to revisit his previous work. His former neighbours believe he took an extended trip to Barcelona with his wife, Margaret,” such information was unsubstantiated but likely to be irrelevant. “Interestingly, this isn’t the first time I’ve encountered the name ‘Denikin’. I direct you to Entry 0151701,” Jon paused to notate his transcription, indicating where to add a hyperlink, “Leanne Denikin, who inherited her grandfather’s defunct lab in 2015 and decided to sell it off. It is unclear what the Institute purchased from Miss Denikin, as the details of the transaction were not included with the rest of her statement.”

Yet another request he would need to make of Elias in order to render the entry complete. Jon was in no rush to do so. The threat of being fired – if not arrested – was unpleasant and frustrating, but strangely reassuring. He wanted to believe there was _something_ that made him vaguely suitable for this job, that it was not simply an experiment. If Elias was willing to fire him to flouting protocol, Jon could convince himself that he was being paranoid. There was no experiment. If someone was watching him, it was a matter of security.

* * *

On Friday evening, Jon stood on the front steps of the Institute. Sasha was on her leave of absence, and Tim had already left for the day. Martin was in the archive. Jon cupped a hand around the webbed lighter and lit his cigarette, snapping it shut with a smoky exhale. Jon flicked the tip of the cigarette with one finger, a restrained frustration in the knots of his back and shoulders. He was groping in the dark for answers, and the irony of it was that he wasn’t sure he’d understand the answers if he had them. Elias wasn’t wrong about him. He didn’t know what he was doing, and his persistent ignorance endangered everyone in the archive- in the Institute.

Jon stubbed out the cigarette without finishing it, threw it away and pocketed his lighter. He wasn’t sure he was capable of feeling the effects of nicotine anymore, if he ever was. He started smoking five years ago much to Georgie’s chagrin, and he had a complicated relationship with the habit. Sighing, Jon scanned his RFID to reenter the Institute, and entered the six-digit pin on the keypad Elias had recently installed in the name of ‘additional security’. By the time he returned to the archive, he found Martin cooking dinner on the small electric cooktop in the breakroom.

It was pasta. Martin lifted the saucepan in one hand and carried it over to the sink, pouring the contents through a yellow strainer. He reached for a long wooden spoon and-  
  
“Jesus- Jon!” Martin startled at the sight of him and dropped the strainer into the sink with a wet _thump_.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes, yeah, I’m fine,” Martin nudged at his glasses with the back of one hand, the tips of his ears flushing beneath his curls, “You scared me. I didn’t realise you were still here.”

“I… stepped out for some air,” Jon replied, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

“Ah.” Martin picked up his bowl of pasta and smiled, “Now that I think about it, it’d be more surprising if you _weren’t_ still here. Have you eaten dinner yet?” He poured the pasta into another saucepan, “I made enough, if you want some.”

“Oh,” Jon hadn’t eaten since- no, he hadn’t eaten today, “That is kind of you, but I wouldn’t want to impose…”

“It’s not imposing,” Martin insisted over his shoulder, stirring the pasta and red sauce together as he spoke, “I mean, it’s canned sauce with no spices, but, honestly, it’d be nice _not_ to eat alone for a change. You’d be doing me a favor.” Martin also insisted it wasn’t ‘kind’ because he ‘didn’t want the extra food to go to waste.’

“Yes, alright,” he muttered after a brief hesitation, stepping into the breakroom to take one of two mismatched bowls from Martin. “Thank you.”

“Wait until you taste it before you thank me,” Martin warned. He fished out two forks from the drawer beneath the microwave and sliding one onto Jon’s bowl with a small smile, “Anything’s better than peaches these days.” That Martin could joke about his ordeal with Jane Prentiss seemed to be a good sign, but Jon wasn’t sure how to respond to it. He sat down across from Martin at the small round table in the corner of the break room. The pasta was bland but warm, and Jon was certainly not in the habit of cooking for himself. He had no complaints.

“It is- good,” Jon said haltingly, exchanging a brief look with his assistant. “Orecchiette is a good choice.”

“Sorry, what?”

“Orecchiette,” Jon repeated, “The… pasta you chose.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Martin nodded in understanding, “The little shells. Yeah, the bag was on sale at Tesco’s. What did you call them?”

“Orecchiette,” Jon speared one of the shells with the tines of his fork, sauce dribbling down, “It means ‘small ears’ in Italian. Surely you can see the resemblance.”

“Huh.” The sound of a revelation being had, he supposed. “I never knew that’s what they were called. It’s a little creepy, isn’t it? Eating a bowl full of ears?”

Jon gave him a flat look. “In Cisternino, they make this pasta with durum wheat and refer to it as recchie d’privte, priest’s ears.” In China, a similar type of pasta was called māo ěr duǒ, or cat’s ears. He thought of the Admiral and smiled.

Martin seemed amused. “I didn’t know you knew so much about pasta.”

Jon shrugged. “There was a documentary.”

“Oh really? What was it called?”

Jon frowned at the lilting intonation. “Martin,” he said, “There is no need to humour me.”

“What?” Martin’s brow furrowed beneath the bridge of his glasses, and he set down his spoon, “I’m… not?”

“ _You_ want to watch a pasta documentary?”

The furrow smoothed out and Martin flushed, his lips turning down. “Yes?” he ventured, still polite but with an underlying tension in his voice Jon couldn’t place, “I like pasta, obviously. And I watch documentaries, too.”

“Very well. I will send the title to you tomorrow.”

Neither of them spoke for the remainder of the meal. Jon finished his serving without complaint, dragging the edge of his metal spoon along the curve of the bowl to gather the last of the sauce. Then he stood up to carry his dish to the sink and stopped by Martin’s side of the table to collect his.

“You don’t have to do that-”

“You cooked, Martin,” Jon interrupted flatly, holding out his hand for the bowl, “I will wash up.” Martin didn’t argue with him further, but he did follow Jon over to the sink, turning on the faucet and retrieving an unused sponge from the cabinet. The gesture was appreciated, and Jon acknowledged it with a wordless grumble. He rolled up his sleeves and scrubbed the bowls, utensils and saucepans clean.

“Jon?” Martin prompted, hovering over his right shoulder, “Why don’t you think I’d like documentaries?”

Jon frowned down at the stubborn ring of red film inside the saucepan, “I don’t think that.”

“But you don’t think I’d like _this_ documentary?” 

“You write poetry, Martin,” Jon said distractedly, “I assumed you would find it too dry.” He reasoned – incorrectly, it would seem - that someone like Martin who thought poetry was the pinnacle of self-expression would prefer art house films or deeply inaccurate biopics that sensationalized the subject’s personal life in order to emotionally manipulate the audience, often to sweeping orchestral music or acoustic songs of middling quality.

“Oh.”

Martin did not make any further inquiries. Instead, he did something useful, wiping down the clean dishes and utensils with a towel, and Jon turned off the faucet. He dried his own hands and turned to leave the breakroom – nearly colliding with Martin. On instinct, Martin reached out to steady Jon with a hand on one shoulder, fumbling over an apology before he let go. Jon felt the warmth of his fingers through his shirt, and he remembered the way Martin had held his hands in Annabelle Cane’s office. The sensation of looking up into Martin’s face was… he wasn’t listening. Martin’s mouth was moving, and Jon was not listening, but as he caught only the end of yet another ‘sorry’, he surmised it was unimportant.

Jon pulled away, fiddling with the damp corner of his shirt, wet from his having leaned over the sink. “Thank you for dinner, Martin,” he said, inclining his head slightly, “It was… enjoyable.” He stepped past his assistant and walked out of the breakroom, making it two steps down the corridor before he heard Martin’s voice call after him.

“Maybe we can do it again sometime?”

Jon turned around, considering the suggestion. “Yes,” he agreed, “That would be… fine. Good night, Martin.”

“Night, Jon.”

* * *

On Monday, it was kielbasa and rice delivered from a Polish deli. Jon learned over dinner that Martin’s grandparents emigrated from Szczecin and owned a grocery store in Ealing. It closed when Martin was twelve. He spoke fondly of spending his summers there, ‘whenever his mum needed a break’ and considered himself ‘a bit of a sausage snob.’ He also enjoyed grocery shopping as an activity and said it ‘didn’t feel like a chore.' Jon could not relate.

“So, you do know Polish,” he mused, scraping the bottom of his plate to gather up the last of the rice.

“Yeah,” Martin replied, smiling at him from across the round, gray table, “I grew up speaking it with my grandparents. I told you that already.”

Jon tilted his head to the side. “You also said you knew Latin.” 

“Right.” Martin’s shoulders lifted slightly, an unconscious gesture to make himself look smaller. “I… well, technically, I never _said_ I knew Latin. No one actually asked me. I just put it on my CV. I... um..."

Jon set down his fork. “Go on.”

“I _might_ have exaggerated one or two details… I just… I thought it would…” he broke off with an anxious inhale, a sharp breath of sound, “…help me get a job.” He glanced up at Jon, wide eyed and nervous, “I’m sorry. I… I really needed this job.”

“Martin, I’m joking,” well, not joking so much as having something confirmed that he already suspected to be true – not that he was intending to do anything about it in his capacity as Martin’s supervisor. “I… I don’t care.” Should he care? He certainly wasn’t going to report it to _Elias_. Latin was only relevant to this job insomuch as it existed on the periphery of the medical field and, of course, the tendency of researchers to label their projects with Latin (or in one outstanding case, Ancient Greek) names. It was terribly pretentious. “An overestimation of one’s own language skill is hardly the worst thing you could fabricate on a CV. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Not the worst thing,” Martin repeated, subdued. He refused to make eye contact. “Right.”

Jon sighed, searching for a better response. Reassurance was not his strong suit. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I didn’t…” Jon paused, and what followed were stilted words, “It was not my intention to upset you.”

“It’s not your fault,” Martin’s smile was tremulous, “I shouldn’t have lied.”

Jon was at a loss for how to correct the tone of conversation, so he settled on a blunt redirection. “Let’s discuss something else.”

Martin glanced up at him, still tentative. “Such as?”

Jon considered his choices, picking up his utensils once more. “You may start by explaining to me what it is you find enjoyable about grocery shopping,” he decided, gesturing to Martin with the fork. Jon detested grocery shopping: the fluorescent lighting, the narrow rows, the unsanitized carts and baskets, the _people_. After he and Georgie had broken up, Jon had started to order his groceries online and have them delivered. He tipped well for the service. If he never stepped foot in another grocery store again, it would be too soon. As a topic of conversation, it wasn’t his first choice, but he was satisfied to find that the suggestion made Martin smile, and he did explain his process with a somewhat engaging degree of enthusiasm. Jon was interested in the description of his grandparents’ grocery store as it catered explicitly to the Polish community in London. And as the conversation flowed to the end of the meal, Jon couldn’t help but make some unfavorable comparisons to his own upbringing.

“My grandmother was of an assimilationist mindset,” he admitted, clearing the plates from the table. “I often regret not being cognizant enough to object as a child.” Jon had nebulous memories of his mother speaking Bengali to him in the kitchen, but his grandmother did not encourage it, redirecting his insatiable curiosity to English books.

“I know it’s not my place,” Martin stopped, looking down at Jon as if he expected to be reprimanded. Jon turned off the water and set the dishes in the drying rack, and listened to Martin stammer his way through a suggestion, “But I think- I mean, for _me_ , cooking is a way to, er, reconnect, I guess? Even if you don’t inherit a stack of recipes, you can always find something online- if you wanted, if you were interested in trying it.” Martin thought he could research, prepare and cook a dish he’d never made before – in his spare time, of course – and ‘see how he felt about it.’

Jon was not impressed. In deference to the fact that he enjoyed dinner, and he understood Martin’s intentions for meddling – a fine reminder for Jon of the consequences of divulging personal information to others – he did not reject the idea with a scathing reproach. He said he would consider it, and he left.

* * *

On Wednesday, Jon found the statement of Jane Prentiss. It was a rambling and disjointed account, scribbled into the paper. She wrote of the Hive as an _it_ and not a _them_ , seemingly torn between the desire to seek help from the Magnus Institute (“to be seen”) and the certainty that nothing could done. She claimed she no longer slept. She asked for forgiveness. She lost her job – Good Energies spiritual supplies shop, Jon notated in the computer, citing their previous research – and could not afford her rent, until the Hive gave her a ‘home’. She was under observation during this time by an ‘old man’ but she offered no additional detail by which Jon might track him down. She described a single room and a mound of newspaper. The Hive built a nest from the newspaper, using her hands to peel the paper into strips, and lick it, and press it into the corner of the room. She claimed there were spiders who watched her from the ceiling, and she spoke to them, but they did not respond. She picked at her skin, and watched it fill with gray fluid instead of blood. Then she was released from the room with the nest.

Throughout the statement, Prentiss described an itch that was not an itch, a symptom that could not be identified or codified by the “books and files and libraries” of the Magnus Institute. The Hive hated them for their hypocrisy: for all that they claimed to bring together man and technology, they did not Know what it was. They observed not to understand but to dissect behind sterile glass and white walls. They did not understand what it was for flesh to be truly integrated with machine, as it moved inside her skin in the form of hundreds upon thousands of worms, whispering to her as a confidante. She did not measure it, or record it, or prod it under the great glass eye of the microscope. She _felt_ it. It wasn’t cold at all. It was warm, so warm, and it needed her, and she needed it, and the holes were gray again. _Another nest_. It was time for her to leave. 

Jon rubbed at his eyes as he finished, sliding his fingers beneath the glasses. The statement provided some insight into her mental state and confirmed much of the information they already knew. But there were no concrete insights into how and where she acquired the nanorobots in her system, or who was responsible for her condition. After he finished editing the transcript of his recording, Jon sent it to Martin, Sasha, and Tim, soliciting their thoughts. Within ten minutes of having submitted the email, they were in his office, clustered around the only other chair in the room.

“I’ve sent you my initial notes,” Jon said, “But I’d like to know if you have anything else to add.”

“This is classic cult psychology,” Tim said, tapping the hardcopy statement with one hand, “She doesn’t have any friends, no mention of a family, major life changes: loss of job, loss of income. So, she’s lonely, she’s depressed, no one’s checking up on her, she’s exactly the kind of person a cult would go for. All this stuff… here…” Tim read out a few words, “…about finding a home, of being loved through being used, that’s… love bombing.”

“Love bombing?”

“It’s… a brainwashing technique, basically,” Tim passed Jane Prentiss’ statement to Sasha, and shifted to face Martin, straddling the arm of the chair, “You overstimulate someone with affection and attention, and then when you’ve got them believing that you’re the only one who can make them feel this good, you can manipulate them into doing whatever you want. Cults do this on a massive scale, with everybody participating in the love bombing. That’s how you get people to sign away their life savings and move to compounds in the middle of nowhere.”

“Or in this case,” Sasha mused, “A room with a newspaper. It sounds like an observation lab. The Hive could’ve kept her there until the ‘love bombing’ was over which… if we’re talking about nanorobots ‘love bombing’ human beings, it's a chemical reaction: blocking pain receptors, flooding the brain with serotonin, hijacking the sensory cortex to ‘sing’ to her.”

“She has moments of lucidity in the statement,” Jon said, frowning at his computer, “She asks for help.”

“Which suggests,” Sasha leaned forward, “that the Hive can’t maintain that degree of neural control indefinitely.”

“Or it means that it doesn’t give a shit,” Tim shrugged, “It’s not like she can walk away.”

“Martin, what do you think?”

“Um,” Martin startled, glancing down at Sasha, “I… I think it sounds complicated.” He seemed to gain confidence with each word, turning to face Jon. “Dr. Cane said the worms weren’t any smarter than the average parasite. I know some parasites can control the nervous systems, but this sounds… more intentional?”

Jon nodded in agreement. The Hive’s hatred – and targeting – of the Institute belied a somewhat complex thought process and motivation beyond consuming and reproducing. “Perhaps she lied.” Jane Prentiss’ statement – if it was to be taken as indicative of ideas not her own – did bring into startling relief the ideology of the Hive. It seemed to advocate for a symbiosis between host and nanorobots in which both needs were met. The flaw in this design was believing that the technology formulated any attachment to its host. It consumed and it moved on. A _parasite_.

“From what I can tell – which is, honestly, not a lot and I’ve been digging in places you don’t even want to know about,” Jon grimaced at the subtle reference to Sasha’s illegal activities, “The Hive doesn’t have an organizing body, or even a web domain. This statement is the closest thing we have to a manifesto, and we still don’t know how extensive it is. I doubt there are records from… wherever she was being held, but I’ll look into it.”

There was not much more to be said about the statement, and none of this could go into the digital archive as it was conjecture. Jon recorded it all the same. He thanked the assistants for their time and dismissed them from the office. Tim and Sasha left with a ‘later, boss’ and a smile respectively, leaving him with Martin who stood by the door with a self-conscious hunch of his shoulders beneath a brown cardigan.

“What is it, Martin?”

“I’ve been thinking about what we can do to, you know, keep from getting infected,” he blurted out, picking at the cuticle of his left thumb. Jon gestured for him to continue. Martin took a steadying breath, “Well, there is no way to see them unless they decide to cluster, and it made me think that maybe they cluster because they can’t move very far when they’re outside of a…a body. Which is great but what happens if they do get into our bodies? It seems like the best thing to do would be to have… an immune response, or something, to shut them down.”

“And what sort of immune response are you envisioning?” Jon tried not to think about it. If he allowed himself to fixate on the fact that this building could already be infested with nanorobotic worms (how would they detect them on an individual scale?), he would never get any work done.

“I… I don’t think you’re going to like it…” Martin warned him, hedging the words.

Jon rolled his eyes. “Just say it, Martin.”

“Dr. Cane could give us-”

“You’re right. I don’t like this.”  
  
“-nanorobotic resistance, or whatever you want to call it. She could design nanorobots specifically to counter the Hive-”

“Absolutely not.”

“-but Jon, she’s kind of already done it.”

“ _What?_ ”

“She kept a sample of- of what we brought her, and she took it apart and she says she can direct the spiders to- to target the worms,” Martin couldn’t seem to stand still, fingers twisting together nervously, “And the best part is that the nanorobots would be totally dormant _unless_ we got infected.”

“And who told you this, Martin?” Jon kept his voice neutral.

"She called me.” 

“Of course she did,” and each time Jon called only to be told by the receptionist that the doctor was ‘unavailable’ or the practice was ‘currently closed,’ she was probably standing next to the phone. “When was this?”

“Yesterday-” Martin broke off, adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed, “Jon, I wouldn’t keep something like this from you, I just- it happened after work, and I didn’t really know how to bring it up. You were busy this morning.” Yes, there were discrepancies in the digital archive in terms of matching files to names and dates, so he wasted half an hour correcting it with Tim’s ‘assistance’. Then he had a meeting with Elias. “I wouldn’t have called her first. I know she’s… we shouldn’t trust her, but…”

“But you think we should allow her to inject us with nanorobotic spiders? Do you understand what ‘trust’ means, Martin?”

“I’m not stupid, Jon,” Martin’s voice pitched high in frustration, guilt flashing across his face at the outburst, “I’m here all the time. It’s the only thing I think about. We don’t have a lot of good choices and the only thing we know for certain is that if we get infected, we’re going to _explode_ into a pile of gray goo and it’s going to _hurt._ If there was any other way to prevent it-”

“Sasha found another way.”

“The acid only works if you can _see_ them.”

“I don’t think that’s going to be an issue,” Jon said flatly, standing up from behind the desk, “I think your first observation was accurate: the worms cluster in order to move, which means that we will see them – or Jane Prentiss – before we are at risk of infestation.”

“You don’t _know_ that, Jon.”

“No,” he agreed, “But this is not a discussion. We are not accepting anything from Annabelle Cane.”

“But-”

“Elias has expressly forbidden any unauthorized collaboration with her, and if you go behind my back, I will be unable to protect you from what he might do.” Jon felt vaguely guilty over threatening Martin’s job, but if it kept him from reaching out to Annabelle Cane, then it was worth upsetting him.

“Seriously?” 

Jon patted the pockets of his trousers until he found his mobile, and as he typed a brief text message, he sighed, “Martin, I just need you to trust me when I tell you that what she’s offering is not a solution. Please.” He should never have introduced Martin to her. This was his fault. 

“I-” Martin’s trousers vibrated, and he jumped, fumbling to pull out his mobile. He frowned at the screen, “What is this?”

“My personal number,” Jon replied, “It occurs to me that you do not have a way to contact me during off-hours. Should you receive another phone call- or find yourself in need of assistance, I do hope you’ll use it.”

“Oh. Okay.” Martin hesitated, “I would give you mine but I don’t really have one anymore. Can’t use it here anyway.”

Jon nodded, setting down his mobile on the desk. “Martin…”

“I won’t,” he sighed, scrubbing at his freckled face with one hand, “I won’t call Dr. Cane, I- I promise. We’ll… figure out another way, I guess.”

“Yes.” Jon did not attempt to mask the relief in his voice, the sigh catching on the vowel, “Alright.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I owe many, many thanks to everyone who has given this story a shot. One of the most self-indulgent aspects of this chapter is the team brainstorming session towards the end... I want to believe they did this in canon, but the Eye didn't care about it so it wasn't recorded often. <3 I hope you enjoyed it too!


	8. Milestone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon ventures into Prototype Storage for the first time.

Jon reviewed the statement of a pharmaceutical representative, André Ramao, who described several incidents associated with an online database of “mind-boggling games,” including a jigsaw puzzle of a Ming vase. After Sasha’s experience with ‘Michael’, Jon decided not to assign the follow-up to her and gave it to Tim. He was in the process of editing the transcription when he was interrupted by a knock at the door. It opened and – to Jon’s surprise – Elias Bouchard stood on the threshold, dressed in what Jon could only imagine was a very expensive suit. 

“Oh,” Jon was surprised, irritation leaking out of his voice, “Erm, hello Elias.”

“Jonathan,” Elias replied with an inclination of his head, “Do you have a moment?”

“Not really.” Jon closed his eyes briefly, repressing a wince. He didn’t take the words back. “I’m in the middle of… something.” After being summoned to Elias’ office last Tuesday, where he was reprimanded for conducting inquiries into the Lukas Foundation, Jon had redoubled his efforts to avoid his boss. He did not expect to see Elias _here_ of all places and racked his mind to think of who he could have offended in one week. He hadn’t pursued the Lukas family further or spoken to anyone but his assistants. If they were going to file a complaint about his behaviour, they would’ve done so by now. 

“I understand,” Elias replied, disregarding Jon’s words to step into the room, “This won’t take long. It concerns your request for access to Prototype Storage.”

Jon straightened as Elias invited himself to sit down in the unoccupied chair. “Yes?”

“Before I deny this request on the grounds of – as I believe we’ve already discussed – your lack of relevant expertise and training,” no, Jon had not forgotten that he was neither a researcher nor an engineer, “I would like to hear your reasoning for filing the request.”

“Will my reasoning have any influence on your decision?”

“Perhaps,” Elias smiled, a thin mild line, “I do take your opinion under advisement.”

“I sincerely doubt that,” Jon muttered, “But I’m willing to make the case because this is important.”

“By all means.”

“Jane Prentiss has already attempted to infiltrate Prototype Storage,” Jon was aware that – to Elias – the evidence was circumstantial, but he was not trying to win a trial. He was trying to protect his staff and the archive without resorting to Dr. Cane's offer. “As her statement indicates, the Hive-” which he’d begun equating with the nanorobotic worms in his mind, although he knew it had to be a collective of people, “-is no friend to the Magnus Institute. It stands to reason that she will try again. And when she does, we should have an idea of what she is after.”

“And you think that visiting the second floor will clarify this for you?”

“It will give us a better idea than the archive,” Jon insisted, “There is a reason Prentiss went to Prototype Storage. We could go through a hundred files and not find it down here.” The archive was still disordered, courtesy of Gertrude Robinson, whose methods remained a mystery to Jon. “We manage the documentation of all prototypes that the Institute produces. There is nothing on the second floor that we couldn’t, theoretically, know about.” Any legal concerns were mitigated by the contracts they had already signed as archival employees.

“If you don’t know what you’re looking for, it won’t help you.”

“Regardless of what I find,” Jon disagreed, “I will know more than I do now.” He was not expecting a revelation, no neatly labeled box with Prentiss’ name on it, but he wanted to see it, “Will you approve the request?”

Elias’ manicured fingers curled along the arm of the chair. “Yes,” he agreed finally.

“Really?”

“Don’t sound so surprised, Jon,” Elias replied, “There are two stipulations. The entire archival staff does not need to traipse through Prototype Storage for you to gather your data, and I do not want you disrupting the researchers.” As he spoke, Elias stood, “Sasha James is the only member of your staff with prior clearance, and I will reinstate it temporarily. Your access privileges will be granted for a thirty-minute window after five o’clock.” It was less than Jon asked for but more than he expected, and the verbal agreement was supplemented by a series of digital forms detailing the specific conditions under which he would be permitted to enter Prototype Storage. Jon supposed he ought to be grateful that there would be no physical chaperone, only the ever-present eye of the camera.

* * *

“Please be sure to note the overtime for payroll.”

“Will do,” Sasha replied, waving her wrist over the sensor, “I haven’t been up here in months.” The glass door slid open and Sasha stepped into the decontamination chamber. She faced Jon with a wink as the door slid shut again. “See you on the other side.” She held up her hands as a small light in the corner turned green, and a foggy spray filled the chamber. Jon had been informed it was electrolyzed water containing sodium chloride. After thirty seconds, the spray stopped, and the chamber was dried with heat and ozone for another minute. A full-body scan was automated. Passing the scan successfully, Sasha opened a white tray and pulled out a white coverall, neoprene gloves, safety glasses, mask, and shoe covers.

Jon entered the room as Sasha exited with a small wave, slivers of dark brown skin visible between the edge of the mask and the goggles. The process was brief and vaguely uncomfortable, but he was grateful to have his clothes on. He pocketed his glasses and wished he had left them in the office, as Sasha did with hers. The coverall rustled as he moved, and Jon grimaced behind his mask as he adjusted to moving with elastic bags on his shoes.

“This feels a bit… excessive,” he remarked to Sasha in a low voice, muffled further by the mask.

Her eyes crinkled in the corners. “Better safe than sorry when you’re dealing with multi-billion-pound investments. Did you know this floor runs on a power grid separate from the rest of the Institute?”

Jon raised his eyebrows. “I did not.”

“Hydrogen fuel cells,” Sasha said, pointing to a white door next to the decontamination chamber. There was no doorknob, but a clear glass panel on the wall. Jon glanced to the rest of the room, which was spacious and clean, brightly lit, sleek metal, white floors, and glass partitions. “It’s easier to think about the layout of this place in terms of projects,” Sasha explained, leading him past individual cubicles. Most of the projects she showed him fell under the umbrella of prosthetics: robotic limbs, hands and feet, as well as neural prosthetics for the ears, eyes, and bladder, motor control, and spinal cord stimulators. Electronic skin grafts in temperature-regulated metal trays, glittering gold filaments against nearly human skintones, white and gray exoskeletons in glass display cases.

Jon examined the evolution of an artificial pancreas, from its earliest prototype – a pump outside of the body that released insulin into the blood – to an electronic organ, and others 3D printed with cultured cells. There were waxy white livers and valves, translucent lungs shaped like boxes, peach-toned hearts with vaguely anatomically correct but functionally irrelevant pink lines painted onto the polymers. Jon did not have the opportunity to examine – let alone select – his new organs before undergoing surgery, and he found himself hoping the colour scheme was consistent inside his body: all white, all peach, or all translucent, not some patchwork combination of the three. 

“Jon?”

“Er, yes?” Jon shook off the absurd rumination on the aesthetics of his internal organs, “What did you say, Sasha?”

“I said, it’s possible Jane Prentiss is looking for organs, if the Hive wants to replace what’s been destroyed,” despite having no interest in preserving her victims in a similar manner, “They would need a specialist to do the transplants, and she’s worse off than _you_ were when you went under so… she probably wouldn’t survive it.”

Jon hummed a wordless agreement, turning away from the hearts. “It’s not a long-term solution,” he wondered to what extent the nanorobots could break down synthetic organs for energy, “And it seems… narrowly focused on the survival of an individual,” which – while possible – seemed antithetical to her statement about the Hive.

“Assuming she still thinks of herself as an ‘I’,” Sasha pointed out as they moved past antennae, EEG monitors and flesh-toned caps threaded through with electrodes, “And not one part of a who- _that’s_ new.”

“What?” Jon followed Sasha’s gaze to a white table. Behind a sheet of glass was a narrow, steel torso with non-functional arms bracing a kiosk with a touchscreen. It was painted white, with black hinges at the shoulders. Connected to the torso was a head encased in steel with a reflective, rounded surface – a blank screen – where a face should be. There was a slight protrusion in the middle of the screen that gave shape to a nose.

“It’s a UBot.”

“Ah.” Jon examined the robot with renewed interest. “This is what Dr. Patel referred to in Entry 0170107.” The transcript shifted to the forefront of his mind. The UBot was an information terminal with depth-sensing cameras, computer vision software, and speech capabilities. The cameras enabled it to change its face, duplicating photos, and taking infrared scans to mimic human expressions. It was rare to find one outside of the hospitality industry, where they were primarily used as novelty concierge staff at hotels. Dr. Patel had taken to spying on her wealthy neighbour, Graham Folger, who inherited a UBot alongside his family’s bed and breakfast. Dr. Patel observed his odd behaviour leading up to his disappearance, culminating in an agitated confrontation with the robot. The most unsettling aspect of the encounter, for Dr. Patel, was the UBot noticing her through the window. It watched her and attempted to contact her using Graham’s face and voice.

Dr. Patel seemed to suggest the UBot had something to do with Graham’s disappearance, but Jon found that unlikely. It was a digital personal assistant, unsettling in its mimicry, perhaps, but no more physically capable of menacing a human being than a television. It stood 1.2 meters tall, with stationary arms that were attached to the machine strictly for aesthetic purposes (“to enhance its human-like appearance”), no legs, no wheels.

“If we’re now branching into humanoid robotics, that’s news to me,” Sasha admitted, surveying the table for any indicator of who was assigned to the project, but there was little identifying information. She peered over the shoulder of the robot, examining the back of its smooth steel head, “I wonder if it’s the same one from the Folgers’ B&B. I’ve got a serial number...” Jon joined her and read the number to himself. When he revisited the Patel file this evening, Jon knew he would remember it. Later, he would give it to Sasha so that she could track down its shipment details, allowing them to compare its manufacturing and delivery dates to the Folgers’ records.

They passed by rows of stainless-steel medical trays stored in six-foot tall airtight containers. Sasha identified two of the containers as holding nanorobotic inventory identifiable by the six-digit code printed on each sterile vial. Jon deliberately chose not to linger, but a conservative estimate told him there were well over five hundred vials. He was reminded of Annabelle Cane’s offer, and of his decision to keep that offer from Sasha and Tim. On the one hand, Jon recognized that he was overstepping – as he did when he decided to keep evidence of Jane Prentiss’ infestation in his office for observation – by not divulging this information to them. Sasha and Tim were respected researchers, taking the same risks each day as him and Martin, and capable of making their own decisions. On the other hand, Jon _knew_ that accepting Dr. Cane’s offer would be a mistake.

But as he did not have a rational explanation for this certainty, Jon couldn’t explain it to Sasha or Tim. The NHS released a survey from the past year stating that 2.6% of the population had – at some point in their lives – undergone a surgical procedure that required the use of nanorobots, with 0.5% of the population living with nanorobotic implants long-term. Dr. Cane – by her own admission - was one of several certified physicians prescribing and monitoring nanorobotic treatment. She could not have built her practice and reputation without a myriad of patient testimonials decrying success. Jon understood that his experience was singular. He had no proof of what happened to him, and his memories could easily be reframed as nightmares, hallucinations or delusions, none of which would be unheard of for a child recovering from trauma.

However, Jon was confident enough in his recollection not to put his assistants in contact with Dr. Cane. Instead he left them vulnerable to Jane Prentiss, and less informed than they had a right to be. It was not ethical (but he _was_ right). Martin hadn’t told them yet, as he apparently trusted Jon despite the fact that Jon had done little to deserve it.

“Thinking hard?” Sasha teased, nudging him with her shoulder.

Jon sighed, breath warm and clinging to the mask. “Not about anything productive, I assure you.”

“C’mon,” Sasha said, and Jon could hear her smiling, “I’ll show you our flux compression generators.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It’s jargon-y term for a non-nuclear EMP.” Sasha led him to several cylinder-like devices encased in glass. The earliest prototype featured an aluminum tube on one end, a copper-wire helix, and a large black transformer on the other end. “We use them for ultrahigh magnetic fields, materials science, pulsed power applications.” This, Sasha explained, was relevant to bioelectrics, enabling researchers to control functions and membrane transport processes in cells through external pulsed electric fields for gene therapy. Jon didn’t understand the particulars, but he grasped enough to see its relevance to the overarching work of the Magnus Institute.

“When you encountered the- er, Michael, it showed you an EMP.”

“Right,” Sasha agreed, gaze shifting from the generators to Jon, “But EMPs don’t work on nanobots… not unless they’re macroscale and conductive, like, part of a network. The human body tends to block most of it.” The Hive _was_ a network, although not one they understood, and Jon wondered how effective an EMP might be if the human body was inundated with those robots to such an extent that they were displacing and dissolving biological matter.

“We should get one for the archive,” Jon decided, making a mental note to press Elias on the topic of the confiscated nanorobots Martin had brought into the Institute. Perhaps the researchers could test their theory, that a critical – or concentrated – mass of the worms could be disrupted by a strong, focused electromagnetic pulse.

“That’s not a good idea.”

He frowned, brow furrowing, “It’s less harmful than sulfuric acid.”

“To everyone but you,” Sasha crossed her arms, coverall crinkling, “It would kill you, Jon. Your life support system is mechanical.”

“Ah,” yes, of course, “Not all of it. I’m sure I could be resuscitated.”

“That’s… uncharacteristically optimistic of you,” Sasha replied, the fabric of her mask scrunching as she wrinkled her nose, “Assuming Elias approved the request, if someone could point it _at_ Jane Prentiss, and if it actually worked, that would solve a lot of problems,” but as Sasha emphasized those were two significant ‘if’s to hang one’s hopes on. And it would require Jon to be nowhere near the vicinity, on a different floor if not out of building ‘just to be safe’. “Let’s stick to the chemical solution, and I don’t know, maybe you can send some strongly worded emails to Elias to get the scoop on what R&D is doing to Martin’s bowl of worms.” For now, it seemed, the flux compression generators would remain here.

Their thirty-minute access period ended, with Jon feeling that he had barely scratched the surface of Prototype Storage. He wouldn’t say he was satisfied with what he’d found but he _did_ know more now than he did an hour ago. Exiting the room required the stripping off and disposal of protective gear and a full-body scan to insure nothing was removed. Once finished, he and Sasha walked down the corridor together.

“May I ask you a personal question?” Jon fished his glasses out of his pocket as they waited for the lift. 

“Sure.”

“Why did you transfer to the archive?” Jon glanced to Sasha as the doors of the lift opened, “You seem like a researcher.”

“I am,” she agreed with a small smile, “I was a prototype technician, as I’m sure you already know,” Jon nodded, “My job was to ‘research’,” she formed air quotes over the words, “the flaws in other people’s projects. How much damage can a segmented polyurethane heart take before it shuts down, or how does synthetic skin burn under UVA radiation?” The lift stopped, and they both stepped into the lobby, “It’s important work, sure, but it wasn’t fun. I like the archive. I feel like I’m helping to build something…” as opposed to breaking it down, “…you know?”

Jon nodded. “Yes.”

“Besides, the second floor is lonely. I’ve got decent coworkers down here.”

“Decent?”

“Can’t complain too much,” she said cheerfully, “But I’ve got this _boss_ -”

“Alright, I’ve heard enough.”

Sasha laughed. “You sure? Not fishing for any compliments?”

“Not sure I’d be getting compliments,” Jon replied dryly, “Better not to fish.”

“I think you’d be surprised,” she smiled at him, “And on that philosophical note, I’m gonna grab my stuff and go home.”

“Of course. Thank you for accompanying me,” Jon slid his hands behind his back, “And don’t forget to-”

“-note the overtime for payroll, I know. Night, Jon.” He offered a small half-smile in response and left for his office, faltering slightly when Sasha called out, “Don’t stay too late!” It was a nice sentiment, and one Jon intended to ignore because he had a lot of work to do. He locked himself in his office and logged his observations from Prototype Storage; after he finished, he uploaded the recording to his personal account, not the cloud. 

* * *

Another week passed.

Jon woke up on Tuesday and he was twenty-eight. During his commute to work, he received a text message from Georgie with a photo of the Admiral, wishing him a ‘pawsome birthday’ and reminding him of their dinner plans. When he arrived at the Institute, he was surprised to find his assistants gathered in the breakroom. They gave him a bottle of wine with a red ribbon tied around the neck, and Jon expressed his bemused gratitude before extricating himself as politely as he could from their celebratory exclamations. Three hours later, he returned from Rosie’s desk to find his assistants crouched in his office in the dark. Jon swore at the sight of them. Tim blew a party horn and Sasha wore a polka-dotted birthday hat. There was confetti on his desk. Elias even joined the festivities, much to Jon’s discomfort, in time to partake of the cake and the wine.

It was a very strange lunch hour. The rest of the afternoon was – thankfully – devoid of unexpected party favors. There were no streamers or balloons or cards, no further acknowledgment beyond the boisterous sounds of Tim finishing off the bottle of wine. Jon didn’t mind. He was not much of a drinker. He doubted any of them managed to get work done but he didn’t want to be the one to ‘bring the mood down' by mentioning it. The ‘surprise’ was not something Jon had ever experienced before. He did not have a strong rapport with his colleagues from the Gallery. The people he knew at university he met through Georgie, and they had always been _her_ friends. But this… as much as he hated it, he was touched by the gesture. He didn’t realise his assistants liked him enough to coordinate such a garish incursion of his personal space.

Jon was grateful to have his office to himself again, but he was having difficulty focusing on his work. He thought about Tim, who orchestrated this ‘surprise party’, Sasha, who transferred to the archive to build something, and Martin who couldn’t leave because Jane Prentiss besieged him in his own flat for nearly two weeks. Jon pulled off his glasses and pressed his hands to his eyes, revisiting the statements in his mind: Timothy Hodge, Martin, Sasha, Jane Prentiss. He spread the unspooling words in front of himself, voices overlapping as crisply as recordings stacked on top of one another. _What do you want?_ he parsed Prentiss’ fragmented thoughts, reconstructing the timeline of events according to the subsequent statements. These limited perspectives overlapped but could not reconstruct the full scope of _what this was._ He needed more information.

Jon wouldn’t ask Sasha to go back into that game, but he wondered if _he_ could find ‘Michael’.

At some point in the evening, there was a knock on his door.

“Come in, Martin,” Jon muttered without looking up from his desk, where he was attempting to decipher the results of a dream study conducted at the Magnus Institute three years ago. Tim and Sasha had already left, departing with another chorus of well wishes for his birthday.

“Hi Jon. Sorry to interrupt.”

“It’s alright,” Jon replied, straightening with a sigh, “I’ve gotten as far as I can on this tonight.”

“Well,” Martin clasped his hands together, drawing Jon's attention to his blue shirt, “I was wondering if you had any thoughts about stroganoff?”

Jon blinked up at him, frowning. “I have… no thoughts about stroganoff. Why do you ask?”

“I was thinking of making it for dinner,” Martin explained, “We’re running a little low on, um, ingredients... not to mention recipes that don't need a stove... but there’s pasta and hamburger… unless you want something else?”

Dinner. “What time is it?” Jon squinted at the display of his computer. _19:02._ “Damnit,” he swore under his breath as he gathered up the papers from his desk, filed them away, and picked up his coat. “Sorry, Martin. I’ve got plans with Georgie and I’m… already late. I’ve got to go.”

“Oh. Right,” Martin laughed, a thready sound, “That makes sense. Nevermind then.”

Jon paused as he rounded his desk. He and Martin had a standing dinner… he wasn’t sure what to call it, nearly every weeknight, as Jon was always staying late and Martin had nowhere else to go. “I am sorry,” he repeated with careful enunciation, “I should have mentioned it earlier.”

Martin shook his head. “It’s not like we had plans,” he insisted lightly. “It _is_ your birthday, you should be spending it out with your… um, friends.”

“Friend, singular,” Jon corrected, “And we’re not going out.” Georgie did threaten him with a karaoke bar, but Jon was sure that was a joke. He didn’t sing in public anymore. “You’re welcome to come, if you want,” he offered on impulse.

Martin’s eyes grew wide. “What?”

“It’s the least I can do,” Jon said, distractedly adjusting his coat over his arm, “For disrupting your dinner...” Martin said they weren’t ‘plans’, and Jon searched for a suitable alternative, “…preparations. I’m sure Georgie wouldn’t mind.” She would enjoy it. She had been pressing to meet the people he worked with as he spoke of them frequently.

Martin’s mouth twitched, a downward turn. “No, no thanks. Honestly, you didn’t disrupt anything, I haven’t even started cooking and I… I can use the leftovers tomorrow. Less work for me,” he smiled again, “You- you should go, though. You don’t want to be late… later.”

“Right,” Jon consulted his mobile as he stepped out of the office with Martin, “Are you sure?”

“Yep,” Martin assured him, stopping off at the breakroom, “Have a nice night.”

Jon gave him a considering look before nodding. “You as well.” He turned away and walked towards the lobby.

“And, um, I hope you have a good rest of your birthday.”

Jon shifted, glancing over his shoulder to smile at Martin. It might have looked more like a grimace. “Thank you.” He lost sight of Martin as he turned the corner and stepped into the lift. On his way out of the building, he turned on his personal mobile, and saw that he had several messages from Georgie. As he walked towards the tube station, he called her to make amends for losing track of time. In the end, he was only half an hour late for dinner which was – given his track record over the past, God, had it really been ten years? – almost early.

Georgie ordered baozi – steamed buns stuffed with curry beef and chicken – for dinner, and they split a pint of rum raisin ice cream. Jon begged off any singing or candles, citing Tim’s surprise party and all that it entailed, from the decoy wine to the party poppers.

Georgie laughed, curled up into the corner of the sofa and licked the back of her spoon. “I’m glad they threw you a party.”

“It was… loud,” Jon set his empty bowl on the coffee table where the Admiral lay sprawled on his side.

“You liked it,” she replied, matter of fact. “I think they’re spoiling you. They were even going to make you dinner.”

“That’s just Martin,” Jon said, scowling at the notion that he was ‘spoiled’ by forced socialization in the workplace, “He makes dinner for himself and I am often also present. It’s not… I don’t think he’s making it for me?”

“You don’t sound sure about that.” Georgie got up to retrieve her glass of wine from the kitchen.

Jon frowned, reexamining their last exchange under a different lens. “He asked for my preferences and offered to make an alternative to stroganoff.” _Was_ Martin cooking for him? Did he feel obligated because Jon was his boss? There was a sting of disappointment that Jon suppressed without acknowledging. “I should have compensated him for the food.”

“Why? So he feels more like a personal chef?” Georgie shook the bottle of wine at him, and he shook his head, reaching for a glass of water instead. “I’m sure Martin wouldn’t be doing it if he didn’t want to.”

Jon was unconvinced. “You don’t know Martin.” 

“I know enough,” Georgie countered, sitting down next to him, cross-legged. “There are plenty of reasons he might want to cook for you.”

“I am his boss.”

“Other reasons.”

“Such as?”

Georgie shrugged, smiling at Jon over the rim of her glass. “That’s something you should probably ask him.” She reached over and patted Jon’s exposed ankle with one hand, “Don’t worry about it. I’m sorry I brought it up.” Jon grudgingly allowed the topic of discussion to shift and by the end of the evening – which did include one fifteen-minute interval of karaoke in Georgie’s studio – Jon had sorted out the Martin Problem. He took full responsibility for not respecting the boundaries of their respective positions, and he would make amends in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! My immense gratitude to everyone who reads, hits, kudoses, comments on this story. I hope you're all bracing yourselves for the end of our hiatus next week! I know I am... ack.  
> Tech Notes: the 'UBot' is based on a couple AI prototypes that you can take a peek at (if you're interested!): Furhat and Socibot.  
> Other Notes: Elias continues to be the sort of person who steals birthday cake.


	9. Siege

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jane Prentiss makes her move.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cw for some negative self-talk from Martin, canon-typical worms and worm-related violence, cw for canon-typical eye trauma. There is a lot of POV jumping in the latter half of the chapter which draws heavily from MAG 39 (Infestation).

Martin cradled a mug of tea in both hands, thumb sliding along the slanted purple text that read _sorry I’m late, I didn’t want to come_. Tim had nicked the mug from the third floor when he transferred to the archive, and Martin liked the colour.

Martin wasn’t having a good day. It was one of those days where he realised an unpleasant truth about himself, and he couldn’t stop thinking about it. Living in the archive hardly disrupted his life at all, because he didn’t _do_ anything outside of work. He only went out if Tim or Sasha invited him, and he had no other friends. No pets. No plants. He didn’t know his neighbours and his mother never called him. No one noticed he was gone. Even his hobbies were small and easily transferable between his flat and a storage room at work. 

And yes, alright, maybe the fact that he was still mortified over his last exchange with Jon had something to do with the resurgence of these thoughts – but it didn’t make them any less true. Martin squeezed his eyes shut against the prickling embarrassment. He honestly assumed Jon would want to spend his birthday in the archive, eating shitty underseasoned stroganoff that Martin only learned to cook from a website. Just because Jon happened to work late didn’t mean he didn’t have friends or a life outside of the Magnus Institute, _unlike some people_.

“Martin?”

He flinched, jostling the mug against the counter but managing not to spill it. He turned around with his best attempt at a smile that softened into a _proper_ smile as soon as he saw Jon. He was wearing a gray vest over a white button-down shirt, and his hair wasn’t plaited. It was pulled up into a loose knot, dark tendrils escaping to frame his face, streaked in silver. Ugh.

“Good morning, Jon,” he managed evenly, tightening his grip on the teacup, “How was your birthday?”

“It was fine, thank you.” Jon paused, lines forming between his brows, “May I speak with you in private?”

“Oh.” Anxiety skittered down Martin’s spine and he swallowed around a dry throat. “Sure.” Jon turned and left the breakroom and Martin followed him to the office. He wasn’t afraid of Jon, whose cutting criticism over Martin’s subpar work had eased off ever since he moved into the archive. But he couldn’t imagine this was a good thing. Jon’s office had been cleaned of all evidence of the birthday party – no cake, or confetti, or cups remained – and Martin shut the door, taking a deep breath before sitting down on the edge of the chair across from Jon. 

For a long moment, Jon didn’t say anything. He looked vaguely pained as he adjusted the two pens on his desk. Eventually, Martin couldn’t take it anymore, so he leaned forward and cleared his throat. “So, um, you said you wanted to speak with me?”

“Yes,” Jon confirmed with an abrupt nod, sliding his hands to the edge of the desk. “I’d like to discuss last night.”

“Oh.” Martin’s fingers curled into the fabric of his trousers, and he sat very still. This wasn’t about work _or_ worms. It was about the bloody stroganoff. He _knew_ he messed that up, but he wasn’t sure how to apologise for it. “Okay…”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but you offered to make me dinner.” Jon stopped and it occurred to Martin that he was waiting for a response, so Martin nodded. That was obviously the wrong move, if Jon’s pursed lips and slumped shoulders were anything to go by.

“I shouldn’t have assumed you didn’t have plans,” Martin blurted out, desperate to fix what he _thought_ Jon was upset about, “It was stupid.”

“What?” Jon frowned in what was either confusion or annoyance, or possibly both, “That is irrelevant. You should not have offered to make me dinner at all.”

“Right.” If it was possible to deflate into a chair, Martin thought he was doing a good job, spine bowing into it.

“I am aware that I have contravened professional boundaries in joining you for dinner, such that you felt obligated to cook for me and to spend unpaid overtime in my presence.” Martin squinted at Jon, trying to make sense of what he was saying. Honestly, the words sounded so ridiculous he almost laughed, one of those embarrassing hysterical laughs that no one ever intended to utter out loud. Meanwhile, Jon went on in that same careful, neutral tone of voice, “This was not my intention, but intention does not mitigate impact and I would… like to apologise.”

“Apologise,” Martin repeated weakly.

“Yes.” Jon did not clarify what – exactly – he was apologising for. Martin had never received a single apology from Jon until last night and now he’d gotten three in the space of twelve hours, with no idea how to respond. “I can arrange for you to be paid overtime for the last week, or if you have another suggestion-”

“You’re talking about dinner.” Jon wanted to _pay_ him for eating dinner together and call it overtime- “It wasn’t work-related.”

“I know.”

“Then it isn’t overtime, it isn’t… anything,” Martin hated the sound of his own voice, pitching high and trembling, and he fought to keep it level so Jon wouldn’t notice, “It’s just… two people eating together after work. It’s not a big deal.” Jon did not look convinced, if the frown between his eyes was any indication. “If it bothers you, obviously we don’t have to do it anymore. But if you think it bothers _me_ , it doesn’t. It didn’t. I… I thought it was… it was great. I really liked getting to… to talk to you.” Martin could feel his face growing warm, his palms sweaty. He didn’t see how eating dinner together was any different from that one time Jon joined them for ice cream, or yesterday afternoon when everyone was drinking in Jon’s office _including Elias Bouchard._ That was… awkward.

“Erm, alright.”

Martin didn’t want to sit in this room and reexamine every single time he invited Jon to eat dinner. He was afraid that if he did, Jon would figure out that it wasn’t nothing. So, he flattened his hands on his lap. “Is there anything else?” To his relief, Jon shook his head with a small grimace. Martin was dismissed. He got up and walked out of the office, pulling the door shut behind him. He stood in the quiet corridor, waiting until he thought he could face Tim and Sasha again, and he ignored the glances they exchanged when he did return to his desk.

Jon didn’t come out of his office for the rest of the day. Martin tried not to think about it.

This was his strategy for dealing with most unpleasant things. If he let himself wallow, he would be miserable for the next week, or however long it took to dig himself out from under those intrusive thoughts, huddled on his dodgy cot. _This is your fault. You made him uncomfortable. He doesn’t want to be friends with you. Tim and Sasha don’t even want to be friends with you, they just feel sorry for you. No one cares about you._ Martin tried to distract himself with work. And he still made tea. Jon didn’t tell him to stop so that… that was something.

* * *

It happened on a Thursday.

Tim was at lunch. Sasha was with Jon. Martin scrubbed a hand through his hair, hunched over his desk and staring at his splitscreen. He was trying to follow up on a few of the documented Fairchild experiments, and for once it wasn’t for lack of information. The Fairchild family was rich and philanthropic. They funded the space station Daedalus for two years, owned the British aerospace manufacturer, Ex Altiora, invested in offshore drilling companies, and established prestigious scientific grants for universities and laboratories. The Magnus Institute was listed as a recipient of their generous donations three times in the past ten years. Martin was compiling a list for Jon when the lights went out.

Martin flinched, leaning back in his chair. The room was dark, partially illuminated by the glow of his laptop which was – yep, running on battery power. No internet. Martin dug his fingers into the edge of the desk, giving it a few seconds, half-hoping the electricity would pop back on. It didn’t.

Someone was shouting.

Martin couldn’t make out the words, but he lurched out of his chair, slamming his knee into the bottom of the desk with a curse. Gritting his teeth against the tingling, pulsing pain running down his leg, he grabbed his phone and switched on the torch. Light bounced off the tile floor as he felt his way to the door of the archive. Martin fished his wallet out of his back pocket and stuck it between the door and the frame before stepping into the corridor.

_“Leave it, Jon!”_

“Sasha?”

“Martin!” Sasha gasped his name as she stumbled out of the office, waving him off from coming closer, “Get the pump sprayer from under the sink.”

“What?”

Jon’s voice rang out from the office, high pitched and furious. “The damned acid! Get the acid!”

“Right, right, right…” Martin pivoted and ran to the break room. Under the sink, there was a gallon tank of sulfuric acid with a funnel top and one of those long black hoses that exterminators used. Martin grabbed the tank by the handle and dragged it out of the cabinet, trying not to think about the swishing, swirling sound. He thought Sasha and Jon were trying to figure out a way to stop Jane Prentiss that _didn’t_ involve flesh-dissolving acids…

“I’ve got it,” Sasha said, grabbing the handle of the tank and the tube, swinging it into the office, “Point the light for me.”

“Where is she?” Martin hovered over her shoulder, raising his smartphone over his head to illuminate the office. Jon’s chair was flung into the far wall and Jon himself stood near the door, clutching a small gray box- an external harddrive, that’s what he had in his hands. The answer was on the other side of the desk.

“It’s not _her_ ,” Jon muttered, “It’s the outlet.” The light from Martin’s phone danced over the floor where there were thick, undulating gleams of silver that disappeared under the desk. His wrist twitched and the light crawled up the wall to the source of the worms. They were wriggling, long, sparking metal strands, out of the gaps in the outlet.

“Jesus Christ!”

“Hold your breath!” Sasha shouted over the hiss of the tube. Martin’s fingers shook around the edges of his phone, as Sasha sprayed down the outlet with acid. But it smelled _so bad_ and whether he breathed or not, it stung his nostrils. Martin heard a _slap_ of something landing on the floor, looked up to see worms drop down from the vent.

“They’re coming through the aircon!” he gasped, breaking off into a cough.

Jon swore. “We need to go!”

“Where?”

Sasha used up the whole gallon of acid. Martin stumbled out of the room with Jon’s hand on his shoulder, pushing him into the corridor. Sasha followed, dropping her sleeve from her mouth to breathe deep, shaking breaths. Jon yanked the office door shut, muttering to himself. “Upstairs,” he managed, facing them, “We need to get out of here.” They ran to the lobby, but Martin stumbled to a stop as his torch struck the door to the stairwell.

“Stop.” He grabbed Jon’s sleeve and yanked him backwards as hard as he could, so hard they both stumbled.

“ _Martin!_ ”

“Look!” Martin pointed at the door. It was gaping wide and open, unlocked, and standing on the threshold was Jane Prentiss, or what was left of her. She stood in a black puddle, looking much worse than the first time he saw her. Her gray skin was loose, and she was missing an eye and three fingers on her left hand. Segmented strands of worms, one, two centimeters around, were crawling out of holes in her body. It _smelled_ terrible. 

“Archivist,” she croaked the word, a whispery sound, and took a shuddering step forward.

“Come on!” Martin backed away from the lift and led Jon and Sasha from the lobby. He picked up his wallet and pushed open the door to the archive, letting it slam shut behind them.

“What’s with the wallet?” Sasha asked, unbuttoning her cardigan and blouse to check for worms. Jon did the same.

“Oh, er, just improvising.” Martin edged away from the locked door, smoothing out the crease in his wallet before pocketing it. He ran a light over their skin and the fabric of their clothes for evidence of the worms, of small dark spots and blood. “I don’t see anything,” he said finally, chewing at his bottom lip.

“It isn’t a guarantee,” Jon said grimly, pulling his jumper back on, “But we probably would have felt it.”

“Speaking of worms,” Martin muttered, shooting a furtive glance to the door, “I didn’t know they could get that big.”

“Yes, well, that was a surprise to us all.” It seemed to confirm their suspicion, Jon said, that the nanorobots clumped together outside of the host’s body, and that doing so allowed them to cover more ground quickly. Jon dragged a hand distractedly over his scalp, catching in the uneven bumps of his hair, pulled loose. “What do you mean by ‘improvising’?”

“What?” It took Martin a moment to realize what Jon was asking. The wallet. “Oh. Well, all the rooms in the Institute use fail-secure doors,” everywhere but the stairwell, according to Sunil, who was head of security, “You can get out, but you can’t get back in if there’s an emergency. So… um, you know, I needed a doorstop.” Martin wasn’t sure the archive was an improvement over the corridor, but at least it put one more wall – and a locked door – between them and Jane Prentiss.

“Ah.”

“I’m usually the only one here when security does their weekend sweeps so… I talk to them?” Martin had asked them a lot of hypothetical questions _that were not so hypothetical, case in point_ , and they were nice enough about answering. Humouring the weird guy who lived in the Institute basement, he guessed. He felt Jon _and_ Sasha looking at him now and muttered, “I’ve had a lot of time to think.” He kept a corkscrew in his room.

“You’re full of good ideas,” Sasha said to Martin with a wan smile, disappearing into the back of the archive with her phone, a bobbing white light weaving between the shelves, “Most of our supplies are in here.”

“Supplies,” Jon repeated, frowning after Sasha before turning on Martin, “Were you keeping _sulfuric acid_ in the stacks?”

“C'mon, Jon.” Martin laughed, a tense, incredulous burst of sound, “A little perspective?”

Jon grimaced, shoulders hunched. “Right. Sorry.”

Sasha brought out another gallon-sized pump sprayer and sat down at her desk, pulling out her computer to try to find a work around to the Prentiss-induced ‘blackout’. Jon blocked the electrical outlets and closed the aircon vents. Martin watched the door. Worms slithered through the crevices along the edges, and he gripped the pump sprayer in both hands. If he sprayed too early, he might end up destroying the door, making it easier for Prentiss to get inside. So for now he watched the worms collect on the floor, ready to spray if they moved any closer.

Martin couldn’t see Prentiss in the window.

That felt like a bad sign.

* * *

“This is hilarious,” Tim drawled, but the effect was muffled by a mouthful of brownie snatched from the canteen. He stood in the lobby with fifty other people, while security swept the floors and did a manual check of each employee using driver’s licenses and photographs. The RFIDs were useless. Rolling his eyes, he searched for familiar faces and he spotted Rosie near reception, frowning down at her phone.

He walked over to her, flashing a broad grin when she glanced up. “Hey Rosie.”

“Hi Tim.” She put down her phone with a sigh, and they were both distracted by a short speech by the head of security, informing the disgruntled crowd that they’d called the utility company and would have a technician on site “within the next four hours.” All staff were encouraged to consult with their supervisors over next steps.

“Isn’t it weird that a building full of geniuses can’t figure out how to turn the lights on?”

Rosie snorted, giving him an amused look. “Can _you_?”

“Probably not,” Tim replied, winking at her, “But I was hired for my looks. My job is to sit still and look pretty – like the song.”

Rosie laughed, giving him an appreciative (at least, he chose to interpret it that way) once over. “I could buy that.” Their conversation broke off as she was accosted by three separate people looking for Elias Bouchard, but Rosie said she didn’t know where he was, or what his ‘preferred course of action’ was. Tim wondered if that was true.

“Soooo?” he prompted Rosie with a playful nudge of his shoulder, after the last of the suck ups walked off, paralyzed by the thought of making a decision they didn’t run by their boss. “What’s the deal? Elias forget the electric bill?”

Rosie raised a brow. “Elias doesn’t deal with the utilities, Tim.”

“Ah,” Tim replied, dusting off the brownie crumbs on his trousers, black denim that made his arse look great, “Right. I forgot the cardinal rich guy rule: only do the things you can’t pay someone else to do for you.” He supposed that included managing a power surge and a bunch of scientists because it occurred to Tim that he hadn’t seen Elias yet. He wasn’t tall, but he didn’t blend into a crowd either, and he liked the sound of his own voice.

“ _Tim_.” Rosie tried not to laugh, and he grinned at her. “I’m honestly not sure where he is.”

“What about Sasha?” Tim frowned when he realised that he couldn’t see her either – and he should’ve been able to, since she was almost as tall as he was. “Martin? Jon?” Rosie shook her head and Tim excused himself with a squeeze of her shoulder. He stopped one of the security guards – a blond named Samson – to ask about it, and he was told they’d ‘get to the basement when they could’. Then he wanted to take down Tim’s ID. He bet it was Jon, keeping her and Martin huddled around some old sheet of paper with one torch between them, which was stupid. If no one else was working, they should be taking a break, breathing in some fresh air, getting Korean food.

No one was paying attention when Tim slipped into the stairwell next to the toilets, letting the door ease shut behind him. There was a sliver of light from the lobby washing over the first few steps, but Tim used the murky glow of his phone to make it down to the basement. There was a bad smell in the stairwell, and Tim wrinkled his nose. He stepped onto the landing and it was _wet._ His shoes made a slick smacking sound on the concrete and Tim grunted in displeasure. He lifted his phone to get a look at the door and saw that the handle was smudged with a gummy black substance. Something cold jerked in his stomach as he glanced down to his feet, and it still didn’t prepare him for _seeing_ it. The same black fluid with tiny (and not-so-tiny) squirming metal grains.

“Gah!” Tim grabbed the handle of the door and yanked it open, diving into the lobby. He rubbed his hand on his shirt until it started to burn and tried not to think about nanorobots eating through the soles of his shoes. “Hello?”

_“Tim!”_

“Sasha?” He squinted at a dim light flashing through the corridor, just before the door to the archive slammed open and Sasha shouted at him. Tim didn’t hear what she said, because the next thing he saw was _that woman_ barreling straight towards him out of the dark. Tim cried out as she tackled him with a gurgling sound, slamming his head into the corner of the lobby chair before he hit the ground. And then everything went dark.

* * *

Tim was a diversion. Sasha realised it too late – she used the acid to ward Prentiss off, and the first thing she did was go for the archive. Martin and Jon were trapped in the backroom, and Tim was unconscious. Sasha dragged him into the loo, looked him over for any injuries, and then shut him in a stall with her phone and what was left of the acid. There were no worms. Sasha told herself she was doing the right thing as she ran up the stairs. The second floor was empty, but the lights were on at the end of the corridor, and Sasha swiped her RFID against the reader.

She stepped into the decontamination chamber, pulled on the coveralls, and went straight for the flux compression generator, picking it up and heading back the way she’d come. Her next stop was the security office.

“Hello, Sasha.” The sound of her own name – spoken in a low-pitched voice – startled Sasha and she turned around, catching movement out of the corner of her eye. It was the UBot. The head moved, tilting down and to the side. The blank white screen of the head turned on, blue eyes, thin lips and peach-toned skin.

“How do you know my name?”

It ignored the question, but it smiled at her. “How can I help you?”

Sasha frowned. “You can’t. Thanks anyway.”

“I detect a disruption in the neutral line which has resulted in electrical failure,” it countered, “Would you like to restore power to the building?”

Sasha raised an eyebrow, drawing closer to the UBot. “Can you do that?” If it was as simple as flipping the main breaker, security would have done it by now. Martin didn’t have power for two weeks, so whatever Prentiss did was a little more complicated than hitting a switch. If it was possible to tap into another line or redistribute the fuel cell energy from the second floor to the basement, that would help Jon and Martin.

“Yes.” The UBot smiled, its face shifting into a facsimile of her own. Sasha snapped her mouth shut. When it spoke again, it had a woman’s voice. It almost sounded like hers. “I am currently restricted from access to building security. Would you like to override this restriction?”

“To restore electricity to the building?” Sasha confirmed, and the UBot nodded. “Yes.”

“Please enter the override code.” The screen on the table, clasped between the UBot’s stationary hands, filled with white letters and numbers, revealing a long string of code that Sasha scanned for whatever ‘restriction’ had been put in place to isolate the UBot from the Institute’s network. It wasn’t as easy as typing in one mystery command – which she would be able to figure out with a generator, standard hack – but something more complex was woven into this program. She didn't recognise it. "Enter the override code, Sasha.”

Sasha looked up at the UBot. It gaze down at her, their expressions identical. “I’m trying. It’s… complicated.” There were a lot of reasons to hurry, but the reason she _didn’t_ expect walked into Prototype Storage a few seconds later.

“Sasha. What are you doing?” The screen went blank and Sasha turned to face her boss. Elias Bouchard. He wasn’t wearing coveralls. “I was under the impression your access to Prototype Storage was temporary.”

“Must’ve been an oversight,” she retorted, “Do you know what’s happening in the basement?”

“I assume Jane Prentiss is responsible?”

“She’s trapped Jon and Martin in the archive. The worms are in the wall sockets and coming through the aircon. We need to turn the electricity back on, so we can get them out.” From what she counted, they were almost out of pump sprayers in the basement.

“There is a manual redirect procedure.” 

Sasha narrowed her eyes. “Why haven’t you done it yet?”

“My office lost power,” he said mildly, “Why are you carrying a flux compression generator?”

“Testing a theory,” Sasha replied, “Sort of a last resort.”

“I would rather not gamble the Archivist on your ‘theory’.” Sasha didn’t think the strength of her glowering dissuaded Elias at all, but he relented with a long-suffering sigh, “I suppose it is the less destructive option. But I need to know what you saw in the archive.”

“Do we really have time for that?”

“Not if you are incapable of walking and talking at the same time,” Elias beckoned her forward, and Sasha grimaced. “Shall we?”

* * *

Jon sat on the cot, listening to the rhythmic _thumping_ of Jane Prentiss attempting to worm (no pun intended) her way into the sealed backroom they’d hidden in. Sasha had run into the corridor with the pump sprayer and Martin had followed her. He was chased back into the archive by Prentiss, who pushed through the door before it shut. They had no choice but to lock themselves in a room with no exit.

The first thing they had done was close the air vent and use up an entire roll of first aid tape to cover the electrical sockets. Then Jon requisitioned Martin’s laptop to record evidence of what had occurred, including the scrabbling sounds of Prentiss on the other side of the door. Martin described what he’d seen of Tim and Sasha. Jon hoped they’d managed to get away. Martin had a reasonable degree of apprehension, he supposed, which explained why he had two gallons of sulfuric acid, a case of water, a large bag of pistachios, a box of biscuits, a jar of strawberry jam, and eight cans of fruit stored in a box on the shelf. Jon felt the weight of the cot shift as Martin sat down on the other end.

“What does she want?”

“I don’t know.” Jon didn’t expect her to target the archive. He assumed she would resume her infiltration of the second floor. “Perhaps her faculties have deteriorated to such a degree that her plans were subsumed by the parasitic need to infect additional hosts. She is a sick woman.”

“Seriously?” Martin’s voice pitched high and incredulous.

“What?”

“Not that I would wish this on anyone, obviously,” Martin insisted, “But there were dozens of people she must have passed on her way to us.” Jon took a deep breath, but he didn’t interrupt. “There’s a reason she’s _here_ and I’m pretty sure it’s not because she’s got some weird parasitic instinct. You have to _know_ that, Jon, they’re not regular worms. They’re robots, they’re programmable. _Somebody_ is doing this to us.”

Jon grimaced. “You’re right.”

Martin stopped on a breath, letting it out all at once. “I- what? I mean, I _know_ but… what?”

“We’re being _watched_ , Martin. Broadcasting our suspicions won't help.” It was more than implants and scans and unobtrusive black cameras in every room, on every floor. It was active, intentional. “We are working under a microscope, being prodded into action not for any real purpose, butbecause someone wants to see what we do. This - all of this - is a damned experiment. And whoever is watching doesn’t care if we live or die.” And it scared him to acknowledge this, to grapple with the question of his own will. He should have known it was not as simple as cutting ties with Dr. Cane. She was not the only one. “I thought… if they didn’t know we knew what it was, we’d have some sort of edge…”

“We don’t have an edge.”

“Yes, _thank you_ , Martin.” Jon glared at him for a long moment. Stating the obvious in situations such as this was exceedingly unnecessary.

"It probably would've helped if you told us about it, too, instead of keeping it to yourself. We're all in this... experiment together."

"Yes, I know." Jon agreed but he was irritated that Martin was pointing it out. "I can't predict the future, Martin." If he had known this was a possible outcome of his action (or inaction), of course he would've done things differently. The sounds of Jane Prentiss began to fade, and he thought she might be moving away from the door. He wondered if it was too much to hope she was getting bored. “The worms _are_ remarkable.”

“Do we have to talk about the worms?”

“ _You_ don’t have to talk about anything. _I_ am recording an audio file in the event of my death,” Jon snapped, “Do you mind?” 

“Right. Fine. I’ll just sit here and twiddle my thumbs.”

“Good. Now, as I was saying before Mr. Blackwood decided to voice his unsolicited opinion,” he paused for effect, and Martin sighed. Jon was gracious enough to ignore it. “The worms are remarkable. The complexity of the commands required to achieve this sort of coordinated assault through the building’s infrastructure is unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” the sheer number of nanorobots that had come together – it was enough to make his skin crawl so he refused to dwell on it, “I find it difficult to believe that a loosely-organised group of radicals,” which was his initial reading of the Hive, from what little information he had gathered, “could achieve such a thing without substantial assistance from… elsewhere.” This meant that they had either grossly misjudged what the Hive was, or it was being funded by a much larger entity.

“What about her?” Martin’s voice was soft, nearly inaudible.

“She doesn’t matter,” Jon replied, glancing away from the laptop. “To the Hive. I would be surprised if there was anything left of who she used to be.” Distinguishing between Jane Prentiss and the Hive was antithetical to what she now was. “She wouldn’t be able to explain why she’s doing this, even if you could speak to her.” Perhaps she would wax poetic about her hatred of the microscope and her desire to be fully integrated with the technology inside of her, but that was a surface understanding of what was happening. All evidence would indicate Jane Prentiss was too far gone to understand – or question – why the Hive would target _them_ instead of securing patented prototypes. They were employees, yes, but their jobs were far removed from the profitable departments of the Magnus Institute.

“It doesn’t make sense.”

“Not yet.” Jon set the laptop aside, allowing it to continue recording as he turned to Martin. “You’ve been living here for weeks because you were attacked in your home by a woman infested with nanorobots. Sasha has received dire warnings of our impending demise from a video game character. And we are always under surveillance.” Jon did not need to see the larger picture to know it was there. “This is not the job as advertised.”

“Yeah.” Martin looked down at his lap, and in the dim glow of the computer’s light, Jon watched him bite his lip. “I thought about quitting, you know. I typed up on my resignation letters but I… I couldn’t go through with it.”

Jon was surprised. “Why not?”

Martin shrugged. “I’m not sure. It didn’t feel right to leave…”

“Ah.” He had spent a fair amount of time with Martin and never suspected he was planning to quit, although he couldn’t say he would _blame_ him. It was strange to think of how different these last few weeks might have been if Martin had left. Jon would have worried about him, with Prentiss still on the loose. But if they – by some miracle – managed to survive this and stop her, there would be nothing keeping Martin at the Institute.

“What about you?”

Jon wasn’t sure how to answer that question. “If we survive this, and you decide to resign,” he said instead, “I would be happy to serve as a reference, a positive one." Jon made the effort to clarify, "You are a good assistant, a good researcher.”

“Oh.” Martin swallowed, “Um, thanks, Jon. That’s… really nice to hear.”

“You’re welcome." He was spared from a drawn-out and awkward silence by the soft hum of electricity. The lights came on in the archive, and the muffled sound of the fire alarm followed, a distant wailing. Martin flinched and Jon stood up, gaze sweeping over the floor to confirm that no, no worms had burrowed into the room. He walked over to the window and peered into the archive, but he saw no evidence of Jane Prentiss. There were papers, boxes, strewn on the floor in puddles of dark fluid, cluttering the narrow paths between the shelves, and he grimaced. He hoped that some of it was salvageable, when this was all said and done. 

“What’s she doing?”

“I don’t know,” Jon replied, “I can’t see her. She’s made a mess of the archive.”

“The lift is probably working now,” Martin mused.

“Yes, and the doors will be unlocked, the security cameras online,” which meant that it would be easier – Jon hoped – for someone to rescue them. “I hope you aren’t insinuating we should make a run for it.”

“God no,” Martin replied with a strained laugh, “Do you know how often that works in movies?”

“I couldn’t say.”

“Never. It never works. The people who do that always die.”

“That seems realistic,” Jon agreed. There was no reason for them to leave the safety of a sealed room in order to charge blindly through the archive proper where they knew Jane Prentiss was lurking just out of sight. Jon decided to resume his recording, sitting on the edge of the bed with the laptop. He attempted to access the internet – it remained disconnected. Martin took his place in front of the door, keeping an eye on the window.

* * *

Tim woke up with a start, groaning at the splitting headache throbbing behind his eyes. He blinked bleary eyes up at the harsh fluorescent light of the- hold on, where the hell was he? Pushing himself upright, his knee knocking against the bowl of the toilet, Tim squinted down at the phone in his lap. It was Sasha’s. _Sasha_. Tim remembered the sound of her voice and getting wrestled to the ground by a legion of worms in a skinsuit. There was a gallon-sized tank and pump next to his feet. Tim picked it up and listened to the acid slosh inside; it was nearly gone.

Tim crept out of the bathroom into the well-lit lobby, streaked in black fluid. He spotted his phone under one of the chairs and bent down to pick it up, pocketing both. He thought he heard her voice coming from the archive, so that was where he decided to check first. He sidestepped a number of sidewinding worms and scanned his RFID to open the door. Gripping the nozzle of the tank with both hands, Tim inched the door open and peered inside, holding his breath and straining to hear… he wasn’t sure what he was expecting to hear. Something had knocked all the belongings off their desks, computers tipped over, papers and plastic figurines scattered, and Tim scowled.

He stepped into the room, catching the door with his hand and easing it shut. He walked along the wall, quiet and careful, with an eye for the worms on the floor and the boxes Prentiss had – apparently – dragged from the shelves. Jon was going to be _pissed_ … if he still alive. Tim hated himself a little. He froze at a rustling, dragging sound and shifted closer. He peered around the edge of a shelf and saw her: Jane Prentiss, if that was the name they were still going with for whatever the hell she was, was enthusiastically splashing a gallon of sulfuric acid on the sealed door that led to the backroom. He wondered where she got it – Jon’s office, maybe? The smell reached Tim, who choked down a cough, but she seemed immune to it: the smell and the way it burned his nose and eyes.

“I knew it was a bad idea to stock up on stuff that hurts _us_ as much as it hurts _you_ ,” he said conversationally, leading Prentiss to snap her neck in a distinctly inhuman way. She turned to face him, and Tim was seized by a full-body shudder. He could see the holes in her mottled skin, and the wriggling glint of worms protruding from them, giving her discoloured flesh a bumpy, wet texture. “We didn’t think you were smart enough to use it against us.” Well, that wasn’t true – but insulting Prentiss seemed like a good idea, in order to distract her so that Martin - was that Martin's face? - could escape. “In our defense, you do have worms eating your brain… which doesn’t usually lead to stellar decision-making.”

Prentiss dropped the gallon of acid, its tubing and the sprayer on the ground, stepping over it to advance on Tim. “You’re afraid,” she whispered, “Of belonging. You have not belonged in so many yearsss…” The word dragged on a rattling, wet ‘s’ as Prentiss began to cough, thick, dark fluid collecting at the corners of her lips.

“I’m really not,” Tim replied, backing away from her, shifting the pump sprayer to his dominant hand. “Back off.”

“We can help you,” Jane insisted in that warbly, distorted voice of hers, “We can give you a family.”

“I don't need a family.” Tim tripped over the box, losing his balance and stumbling back into the shelf. It split his attention for a second, as worms crawled out from under the ruined box and over his shoes. Something dripped onto his shoulder. Tim spun around in a panic at a sharp hot pain cutting through the side of his neck, choking down a scream. He let loose on the pump sprayer, squeezed it and pointed, holding it down until it began to spit, running empty. He thought he heard a screech over the whistling, hissing sound of the acid, but he could barely see through the tears. At some point he ended up on his knees, scratching at his own skin until he felt hands on his shoulders.

_“Tim!”_

* * *

Jon forced open the damaged door with his shoulder as Prentiss cornered Tim against the stacks, holding his sleeve to his face. The air was nearly unbreathable. She swiveled back towards them and Jon felt her bulging, leaking eyes on him. Jon pushed Martin away with a meaningful jerk of his head, putting distance between them. Martin went to Tim, and Jon stood exactly where he was, fixed by the look on her misshapen face.

“Archivist.”

“What do you want?”

“They want you to die,” Prentiss replied, surprisingly straightforward – considering her prior incoherence.

“That is not what I asked.” Jon’s throat was tight and sore, and he cleared it with a wince. “What do you, Jane Prentiss, want? You know the difference between your thoughts and those of the Hive.” Prentiss stared at him, and Jon tried not to look at the source of the wet dripping sound. A worm wove between the fraying threads of her top, then slid out of her skin entirely, landing with a _plop_ on the floor between them.

“Jane, do you remember your job at the spiritual supplies shop?”

Prentiss’ jaw shifted, lips parting. “I… I don’t…” Jon half-expected to see silver filling her mouth, and he was grateful that all she did was lick her lips, breaking off mid-sentence.

“It was a shop in Archway called Good Energies. You worked there for three years. Does this sound familiar?” Prentiss swayed forward, but it would have been difficult to say whether she was focusing on him or not. “Describe the shop to me, Jane.”

“Enough, Archivist,” Prentiss growled the words, shuffling closer to him. “You are making it hard to _listen_.”

“Listen to what? The Hive?” Jon pressed, “You don’t need the Hive to answer these questions, Jane.” She said nothing but he had her attention, and he thought he was getting through to her. Facing her, seeing all that she had become, Jon was seized by this irrational need to know if there was _something_ left of who she was. “How long has it been since the Hive allowed you to speak for yourself? Do you remember the things you once enjoyed? I’m sure you had hobbies and interests, books you read, films you watched, restaurants you visited. Can you tell me about them?”

“No,” she rasped. Jane shook her head and Jon ignored the black fluid dribbling out of her left ear, “You don’t understand.”

“Help me understand,” Jon said, “You have given up everything for the Hive and they have used you. They have made you sick. They have made you hurt people.” Jane shifted closer, body wobbling like a lush. “I know it’s hard to imagine now but there was a time when you weren’t in pain,” from the damage those worms inflicted on her, “I don’t think you want to be here, Jane. I don’t think you want to hurt anyone.”

Jane’s mouth trembled, her fingers curling, digging into her palms. “I…” she broke off with a disoriented weave of her head.

“You came to the Institute once, looking for help, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

Jon swallowed against his own burgeoning gag reflex. He could smell her now, and it was an overpowering, sickly scent. “I’m sorry no one helped you then. They should have.” This was one of many things he had no problem blaming on Gertrude Robinson, and her ill-run department. In person, Jane Prentiss was almost pathetic. “I want to help you now, Jane, if you’ll let me.”

“Please…” her voice broke on a wet gurgle. She stumbled and on instinct, Jon reached forward to catch her, bracing his hands on her cold and bony shoulders, the strained and dirty fabric of her clothes. She grasped his face with her fingers, pressed her palms to his cheeks, and Jon forgot to breathe. He could feel something moving under the skin of her palms even as she whispered the words, croaking the syllables as if it physically pained her to ask, “Do you see me?”

“Y- yes. I see you,” Jon wasn’t even sure what he was saying, but it seemed like the right answer because she smiled at him with her rotten teeth. Her grip tightened and Jon knew he had made a terrible mistake. “Jane, let me go. Let me go so I can help you.”

“They don’t want your help,” she said, “They want to see.” He realised too late what she was going to do, though he distantly heard yelling just before her fingers plunged into his eyes – and she spit on his face. Jon screamed for a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I'm sure you can guess, sulfuric acid is highly corrosive, very dangerous to inhale so they are all going to be sick (but they will survive!). What I found fun about this chapter was thinking about a Jon who sees himself in Jane, which he did not do in Season 1. It made for a slightly different dynamic... which I hope was less predictable than some other elements of this chapter that draw more explicitly from canon. Of course, Martin would tell Jon that it's another horror movie foible to think you can reason with the "monster", but hindsight is 20/20 (pardon the eye-related pun). I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you so much for reading.


	10. Recovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon spends a few days in the hospital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cw for a doctor withholding pain medication to coerce a patient into agreeing to a procedure, and for mild to semi-graphic mentions of eye gouging and surgery. Cw for someone expressing the sentiment that cybernetic implants make them 'less human'.

Elias Bouchard watched the Archivist’s first surgery from the observation deck. He brought in specialists to extract the worms from his eyes, treat the burns, and clean the detritus from his blood. Jane Prentiss had not succeeded in fully blinding him, but Martin Blackwood’s poorly aimed use of sulfuric acid certainly didn’t help. His eyes were ruined. The Archivist was scheduled for a second surgery to replace them – but the transplant had been delayed for six hours. Elias, while sympathetic to the demands of a teaching hospital, expected his patients to be prioritized. He crossed his ankle over his knee, sitting across from the Archivist’s bed, and answered emails. 

The door opened. “Dr. Bouchard?”

“Yes?”

“I apologise for the delay.” Elias waved off the clumsy effort to placate him without looking up from his mobile. “I understand that you have requested an update on Mr. Sims’ condition. He is stable, but we need to wait for signed consent from his medical proxy, Ms. Barker, before we move forward with the second surgery.”

“No.” Elias turned a withering eye to the nurse, standing up with a measured sigh to convey his dissatisfaction. “Ms. Barker is not capable of making medical decisions for the patient. Obtain the consent from Mr. Sims directly.”

The nurse frowned, her gaze darting between the patient and Elias. “But-” Elias raised an eyebrow and made no effort to assist her in fumbling through a protest, “Dr. Bouchard, Mr. Sims is sedated. Even if we woke him up, he wouldn’t be able to consent to any medical procedures.” She consulted the tablet in her hands, as if that would shield her from his growing displeasure. “He is listed as ‘incapacitated’ due to pain.”

“The patient has a high tolerance for pain,” Elias dismissed her concerns pleasantly. “This is not a request. Bring me a doctor who will wake him up.” The Archivist was restrained, his wrists cuffed to the bed, so as to prevent him from touching his wounds. He was given intracranial injections to counteract the sedative. He woke up screaming, thrashing in the bed and incoherent.

“Jonathan.” The Archivist’s pulse rose rapidly, his chest heaving as he panted through gritted teeth. He groaned through his pain, hands and feet spasming. Elias was unperturbed. “Jonathan,” he repeated in an even, measured tone of voice, his words punctured by the gasping breaths of the Archivist, “It’s Elias. You are hyperventilating. Calm down.” He was disoriented without his sight, but capable of registering Elias’ voice. Elias explained to the Archivist that he was in St. George’s Hospital, following the attack of Jane Prentiss. He had undergone one surgery to remove what remained of Prentiss from his body, but the eyes were badly damaged, likely unsalvageable.

“You have a choice to make, Jonathan. You can stay as you are right now,” functionally blind and suffering from the inflammation of his optic nerve. Elias did not enjoy pain, but in his experience it expedited the process of securing informed consent. “Or you can agree to the recommended course of treatment: visual protheses.” Jon’s ragged breathing filled the air between his words, but he was listening. “Your sight will be fully restored. The Magnus Institute will cover the cost of your procedure and recovery.” It did not take long for Elias to acquire verbal and written permission in exchange for morphine and sedation. The surgery was scheduled for five o’clock.

* * *

Jon came to without his sight. Elias was his first visitor and Jon vomited on the floor. It was humiliating. Elias did not acknowledge the gagging, the acrid smell, or the orderlies who cleaned up the mess next to the bed. He wanted to discuss work. Jon was too embarrassed to object. The next day, the hospital staff removed the pressure bandages and inspected the orbital cavities for evidence of infection. There was swelling in his face, and an incision in the back of his skull where the doctors drilled to augment the visual cortex of his brain by inserting an implant corresponding to the ones in his eye sockets. The pain was to be expected. There was no discharge – or twitching. The most disconcerting aspect of the surgery was the perfect vision it afforded him. He couldn’t remember what happened to his glasses during the altercation with Jane Prentiss.

Georgie visited him in the afternoon. She was angry at the hospital for not having notified her sooner, but she brought clothes and toiletries from his flat. His hair was cut short, no more than two or three inches, and shaved in the back for surgery. Georgie said it looked good. Jon didn’t want to look at it, and he avoided direct eye contact with her.

Then it was Sunday, or so he was told.

Jon was awake.

He closed his eyes- no, they weren’t eyes and he didn’t even want to admit they were his. The implants were cameras set within the pupil. The images captured by the camera were wirelessly transmitted to electrodes implanted in the retina at the back wall of the eye. The images passed through a microprocessor which converted them into electrical pulses that passed along nanowires – a synthetic compensation for his damaged optic nerves – to the brain. The retina responded to wavelengths of light up to 800nm, permitting the patient (Jon) to see the near infrared band. Processing time for light patterns was 7ms. Image sharpening and overall clarity was superior. This was the reason for the implant in his visual cortex: to improve the speed of image processing in the brain.

The door opened and Jon heard a sharp intake of breath, a mumbled apology from a voice he recognised.

“I’m not asleep, Martin.” He blinked and turned his head to the side. With no small amount of relief, Jon found that Martin’s current appearance aligned with Jon’s memory of what he looked like before – he had changed his clothes, a brown jumper and slacks. The jumper appeared to be soft, threads well-worn from years of washing. There were dark circles under his eyes, skin pale with lack of sleep, corners of his mouth drooping with fatigue, a shadow of a beard on his chin. Jon had never seen Martin with facial hair. “You look terrible.”

Martin laughed, but it was a strangled, aborted sound. He hovered by the door. “Yeah, yep. Do you have a minute?”

“I could probably spare more than one,” Jon replied. Martin drew closer to the bed, looking everywhere but at Jon, and silence hung in the air between them. This gave him the opportunity to examine Martin more closely. He seemed fine – physically. “Are you planning to make this a habit?” Jon raised his left hand off the bed in a weak gesture to the room, and elaborated with a wry twitch of his mouth, “Hospital visitations.” He wasn’t wearing scrubs this time.

“Oh.” Martin hunched his shoulders with another uncomfortable laugh, “Um, I hope not.”

Jon frowned. “Did something happen?” His heart sank and he gripped the edge of the bed, “Is Tim…?”

Martin’s eyes widened. “No, no, it’s nothing like that,” the words rushed out, and sank into the stool next to Jon’s bed, “Tim’s fine. He’s down the hall with Sasha. They’re both fine.” Jon relaxed. “Tim was getting treated for the, erm, burns and the worms- ha, unintentional rhyme. But he’s doing really well,” Martin ducked his head with a small smile, “Sasha says he’s getting discharged today.”

Jon was relieved. “Good.”

Martin’s smile crumpled then. “I’m so sorry, Jon.”

“For what?”

That, it seemed, was all it took to prompt Martin into blurting out, voice thick, “For hurting you. Tim was on the ground and the worms were- were in his arm, his face- and I turned around for a minute to check on him, and I didn’t- I didn’t realise what she was going to do, but I _should have known_. I should have been paying attention-”

“Martin-”

“-and- and then when I tried to get her off of you, I couldn’t do _that_ right either. I’m the reason your- your shoulder is- and your neck- I- I did that, Jon. I spilled the acid on you, I’m so sorry.” Martin was close to tears. His eyes were wet and glistening. Jon followed his gaze to the ill-fitting hospital gown, slipping off his left shoulder. The skin there was bandaged with white gauze and clear tape, as was the side of his face, and his forearm. It hurt, a simmering ache. Soon it would begin to itch and blister, but in a month the skin would scar. He didn’t mind scars.

“This is not your fault, Martin.” Trying to remember what happened after Jane Prentiss gouged out his eyes made his whole body throb, his stomach churn. His head pounded but there was nothing he could do about that. He was not easy to drug which, he supposed, was a good thing. But he was tired of having needles pushed into his ear. The pain was nothing he couldn’t deal with. “I made an impulsive decision that put you and Tim at risk. I should never have tried to reason with Jane Prentiss. If anything, I owe you – both of you – an apology.”

“Jon…”

“I’m sure whatever you did saved my life.”

Martin shook his head, eschewing the words and refusing to meet Jon’s eye. “That was Sasha and Tim. When we finally got you away from Prentiss, and you were- you were-” he broke off, trembling, and Jon impulsively reached across the bed to touch Martin’s hand. It was a small, awkward gesture, a pat on the knuckles, and Martin flinched at the contact, his elbow bumping into a metal tray. An empty container of pudding – from a spectacularly disappointing breakfast – wobbled on the edge, but Jon reached over and caught it before it fell to the floor.

Martin offered a shaky smile in response. “Sorry.”

Jon ignored the apology. “Tell me what happened.”

Martin took a deep breath and continued, “Tim poured everything we had on her. And then Sasha found us and told me to take you out of the archive. Elias was in the lobby, with paramedics. They stopped Jane with some sort of device from Prototype Storage, although by then she was almost gone. Tim said there wasn’t much left.”

Jon nodded, parsing the explanation to fill in the blanks of his own mind. “I want to see Tim,” he said, letting go of Martin’s hand. He leaned forward to push off the bedsheets of his hospital bed, shifting to sit upright with his bare feet against tile floor. “And Sasha. What room are they in?”

“I- I’m not sure you should be moving around.” Martin pushed back his stool, holding out his hands as if to ward Jon off.

“I lost my eyes, not my equilibrium,” Jon retorted, “I think I can manage to walk down one corridor.” He pushed himself to his feet. To Martin’s credit, he said nothing when Jon’s left knee buckled, steadying him with a hand to his good shoulder. The movement pulled at his wounds all the same and he scowled, embarrassed. He stood next to the bed with Martin until the trembling abated. Crossing the room unassisted, Jon slid his feet into paper-thin slippers and jerked his head in acknowledgment of Martin holding open the door.

Sasha let them into Tim’s room, dark eyes lingering on Jon’s face for reasons he didn’t care to ask about. Tim was sitting up in bed, and he offered a lopsided smile in greeting. Jon inquired after Tim’s recovery and received clarification on the events leading up to his hospital stay, dovetailing with Martin’s own explanation. He was not happy to hear that Prentiss’ body was recovered from the authorities and logged as Institute property, to be studied in their laboratories. According to Sasha, the archive was so badly damaged that Elias had given them all mandated time off during the reconstruction process. Jon was disgruntled by the news – but he seemed to be the only one.

“I’m going to sleep for a week,” Sasha exclaimed, “After I get this one home.” She nodded at Tim.

Tim didn’t take the bait, because he was watching Jon. “So, you got new eyes,” he said abruptly, “That was fast.”

“ _Tim_.”

Jon ignored Martin’s reproach on his behalf and replied, “Yes. How are… you?”

“Alive. I’ve got to see a physical therapist about the arm, but at least they backed off about giving me a new one.” Tim’s voice was light, talkative, “They’re worse than my gram. When I was a kid, she would tell my parents that my brother and I should get our tonsils out, when there was nothing wrong with our tonsils. Kids get sore throats. That doesn’t mean they need doctors snipping out perfectly good body parts.”

“He’s still on morphine,” Sasha murmured, “For the shoulder.”

“Sure am,” Tim agreed cheerfully, “It’s good stuff.”

“They offered to do a skin graft and replace the damaged muscle,” not the whole limb then, just the parts that were badly affected, “To give him full usage of the arm right away, but Tim turned them down.” Sasha’s explanation made sense to Jon. Tim had a strong aversion to cybernetics which Jon tried not to take personally. It did raise the question of why he chose to work at the Magnus Institute… but that was a conversation for another time.

“I didn’t know you had a brother,” Martin remarked with a small smile.

“Used to,” Tim shrugged his good shoulder, and Sasha winced. “He’s dead.”

“Oh.” Jon watched Martin’s face, his stricken expression and the crease of his brow. “Tim, I’m sorry.”

“Why?” Tim looked up at them, dark hair falling into his eyes, “It’s not like you killed him.”

“Um,” Martin sucked in a quick breath, “Right.”

Sasha clasped her hands together and turned to Jon, breaking the awkward silence. “How are you feeling? Really?”

Jon was taken aback by the shift in tone. He blinked at her, nostrils flaring in displeasure at the sensation. He was starting to hate blinking. He wasn’t sure he needed to do it anymore, but the semi-autonomic response remained intact. His eyelids slid slick over the hard implants – Jon had never fully appreciated it, how soft an organ the eye was, until he felt it rupture under her fingers and her worms, piercing through the wet sclera.

“I’m fine,” Jon said, “Really.”

Sasha raised an eyebrow, but she did not press the subject. The door to Tim’s room opened behind him and Jon shifted to the side as a blond doctor – not one Jon recognised – entered with a tablet to discuss Tim’s post-operative recovery details and his discharge forms. Jon excused himself and Martin followed, both expressing stilted, lukewarm well wishes in the presence of strangers before leaving. He was glad to see Tim and Sasha alive and intact, but he didn’t know how to thank them for what they did. The words – ‘thank you’ – seemed paltry in the face of what had transpired.

Jon returned to his room, taking off his slippers inside the door. Martin watched him. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Alright.”

“It’s about Jane Prentiss,” Martin warned him, fiddling with the rolled up sleeve of his jumper as he spoke.

Jon sighed in acknowledgment. “Fine.”

“Or not,” Martin said hurriedly, “I won’t, if you don’t want me to-”

“It’s fine.”

“Okay.”

“Martin.”

“Why did you try to reason with her?” he asked finally, standing near the foot of the bed. “You said she didn’t matter, that there wasn’t anything left of her…” _and obviously that was the right of it, since she gouged out your eyes._ Jon could hear the unspoken end to the statement, less kind than Martin would be in pointing out the same thing.

“Yes, that was a miscalculation on my part.”

“Jon, that’s not what I mean.”

“I know.” Jon sat down on the edge of the hospital bed, glancing down at his hands. “It would be too generous to call it a calculation. But I do know what it feels like, to have my body puppeted by something else. She referred to the Hive as a ‘they’, not a ‘we’. There was enough of her left to make the distinction.” But it was a barely-there cognizance of what she was in relation to the technology that had overtaken her body – not enough to save her. The capacity to reason and to exercise free will were not abstract philosophical concepts. They were neurological processes that could be impeded or destroyed – and what defense did a human being have against that?

“Jon…” 

“It was a mistake.”

“You were trying to help someone.”

“Now she is being dissected at my place of work,” perhaps this was unavoidable – and he couldn’t regret her death if it meant that Martin, Sasha, and Tim were (relatively) unharmed. “And I am less human than I was a week ago.”

Martin frowned. “That’s not true.”

“It _is_ true,” Jon snapped, glaring up at his assistant who stood over him with a perplexing shift of his brows. “The percentage of organic matter in this body is objectively less than it was one week ago.”

“I don’t think this is about percentages,” Martin pointed out, his voice gentle. Jon ignored him. “How much did you lose, like, one percent?”

“Two hundredths of a percent.” Both eyes together constituted 0.02% of the total body mass. He considered Martin's words anew - and balked. “One percent, Martin? Really?” The eyeballs would each weigh as much as a human hand if those proportions were accurate. “What _did_ they teach you in your master’s program?” Apparently a degree in physiology wasn’t what it used to be.

Martin blushed. “I was exaggerating…” he mumbled, scratching at his chin with one hand, “..for, you know, effect.”

“Hyperbole is the bastion of the uninformed, Martin,” Jon groused in response, “You are a researcher for God’s sake.”

“Right.”

His shoulder burned and so did his face. His head ached, a cottony, swollen pressure that made him nauseas. He didn’t want to talk about his eyes. “I need to lay down,” Jon said, reaching out for the metal bar of his hospital bed to pull himself onto it properly.

“Oh,” Martin gasped the word, and Jon didn’t know why he sounded so… not surprised, he wasn’t sure what the intonation was, “Do you need help?” Jon shook his head, easing into a horizontal position with a sharp exhale, “Do you, um, want me to go?”

“I don’t know,” Jon muttered the words without thinking – and corrected himself after an uncomfortable beat of silence, “Yes. Please.” He couldn’t ask his employee to sit with him in a hospital room while he tried not to _think_ , and he felt indecisive about the prospect of vomiting again – which he certainly didn’t want to do in front of Martin. Perhaps he should be grateful that he still had the reflex… it was very human. Disgusting.

“Okay.” He listened to Martin move away, the shuffle of his steps on the floor. The door opened. “Feel better, Jon.”

“Martin?”

“Yeah?”

Jon opened his- _the_ eyes again and turned his head to the door. “Thank you for coming.”

Martin smiled at him. “Of course, Jon,” he replied warmly, “I’m really glad you’re alright.”

‘Alright’ was a fair assessment, he supposed. “Yes,” Jon agreed, “I feel the same – about you, not about myself, obviously." He paused, “And Tim and Sasha, of course. Very… glad.”

“Right.” Martin’s smile faded into something inscrutable. “Try to get some rest.”

“Yes,” Jon agreed, acknowledging the suggestion with no intention of adhering to it. Martin left and he turned his gaze back to the ceiling and tried to recall the last documentary he had watched. The nausea passed within the hour and at some point in the afternoon, Georgie visited again and brought food from the Thai restaurant they both enjoyed. Jon wasn’t sure he could keep it down – or that it was permitted inside the hospital – but he was grateful. She stayed for three hours, until Jon told her to go home and feed the Admiral. Later (Jon wasn’t sure of the time), Sasha came by with Tim to wish him good night before leaving the hospital.

And then he was alone.

* * *

It was Tuesday. Jon wore the clothes Georgie had brought for him, black trousers and a white t-shirt with an illustration of five kittens and the words _CATS AGAINST CATCALLS_ printed in large black font. He was glad to be out of a hospital gown.

He turned on the bathroom light. The lenses constricted, ring of brown narrowing to focus on the mirror. He leaned forward, gripping the sink in both hands, and stared at himself. There were no blood vessels in the white artifice of his sclera. The iris was a close match to his own, but upon closer inspection, the design was flawless and more intricate than a first glance would suggest. The iris was composed of identical, alternating striations of brown and amber, sliver thin bands of colour neatly ringing the pupil.

There was a knock at the door. “Jon?”

“Yes.” Jon turned away from the mirror and stepped into his room, where Martin stood holding a disposable coffee cup with a green stopper in the plastic lid. He was staring, no doubt at the ridiculous shirt he was wearing. Jon shifted uncomfortably, “Yes?”

“I- um, hi Jon,” Martin stammered through the greeting, brandishing the cup as he spoke, “I- I brought you some tea.”

“Oh.” Jon was surprised and grimaced at the unexpected spread of warmth in his chest. The defensiveness leaked out of his voice and his posture, shoulders slumping with a twinge. “That’s lovely, Martin. Thank you.” He took the cup from Martin and breathed deep, catching the sweet scent of fruit and leaves. It made him smile. Darjeeling, no milk or lemon. It tasted as good as anything Martin brewed at work, and far superior to what the hospital had to offer. “It’s perfect,” Jon muttered, sitting down on the stool with the cup in his hands. “As always.”

“Great.” Martin seemed pleased, and Jon watched as a thought occur to him. “I also, um, went by the Institute and picked up your phone. I thought you might need it- not that I went over there _just_ for your phone, I needed to get mine too and I figured…” he shrugged, trailing off awkwardly as he fished the item out of his pocket. It was Jon’s personal mobile, and he leaned forward to take it from Martin with a small smile.

“Thank you.” Jon turned the mobile over his hand, unsurprised that it was dead. He set it aside and took a sip of tea, “And how is the Institute?”

“Oh, erm, still standing,” Martin said, “Most of the damage was in the basement, you know, so everybody else is back at work.”

“But the archive is closed?”

“Until Friday, at least, according to Rosie.”

“I see.” Jon was disappointed.

“You can take more time off, if you need to.”

“No,” he frowned over the lid of the cup, “I received my discharge notice. I’d like to get back to work as soon as possible.” There were only so many hours he could dedicate to brooding over his situation. It was tedious. Earlier that morning, Jon had requested a copy of his own medical file to annotate but found it difficult to compose an objective statement without the resources of the Institute. He wanted to revisit Prototype Storage.

“ _Really?_ ”

“Yes. We have a lot to clean up.”

Their conversation was interrupted by a nurse, who stopped into the room to inform Jon that his discharge paperwork was complete and that he was free to go. Then the nurse turned to Martin and told him to keep an eye on Jon for the next twenty-four hours, insure he slept with his head elevated, and accompany him on daily walks. Additional constraints included no driving for two weeks and no lifting items over nine kilograms for two months. Martin nodded in response to the nurse’s recommendation rather than correct them, and Jon said nothing.

“I apologise,” he murmured after they had left, turning away to gather his things. “Please disregard that.”

“Oh.” Martin hesitated, “Do you have someone else coming to pick you up?”

“No.” If he could manage to put on a t-shirt by himself – which, frankly, was a Sisyphean task with the state of his shoulder and the neckline – he could manage to find his way home. It occurred to him that his car remained in the Institute parking lot, and he sighed. “I’ll be taking the tube.”

“By yourself?” He ignored the question, searching for his wallet and key fob in his belongings. “You had brain surgery, Jon. You have a literal hole in your head.”

“It is a very small hole.” 

“It’s in your _head_.”

“I don’t know what to tell you Martin,” Jon shot him an exasperated look, sorting through his pockets for the wallet, “I feel fine. And to be perfectly honest, a minimally invasive craniotomy is hardly my most pressing medical concern at the moment.”

“That’s even _more_ of a reason for you to have an escort.”

“I don’t need an escort.”

“Jon, come on,” Martin was unexpectedly persistent on the subject of the nurse’s recommendations, which Jon found irritating. “I promised the nurse I would look after you. The least I can do is help you get home – please? It would make me feel better.” Jon declined the offer but – much to his vexation – Martin followed him out of the hospital all the same, accompanying him to the Tooting Broadway station because he did not own a car. Jon gave up on the argument and sat next to Martin on a Northern line train. They didn’t speak for the remainder of the trip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to note that what Elias did was illegal, and Jon would have legal recourse against everyone involved if he decided to pursue it. While he may believe that he consented to the procedure, he couldn't have in his condition. As always, I make no excuses for Elias. 
> 
> Thank you very much for reading. I am so appreciative!


	11. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martin stops by Jon's flat and meets Georgie for the first time. Sasha receives a warning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cw: there is a discussion of the history of prosthetics / prostheses in this chapter.

“You live in Balham?”

“Well spotted,” Jon replied dryly, glancing to him as they stepped out of the station. “You sound surprised.”

Martin followed Jon down the street, latching onto the prospect of conversation after a quiet train ride from the hospital. He was encouraged that Jon didn’t seem upset. “I… sort of?” he answered, quickening his pace to keep up with Jon. “It’s not that I thought you lived somewhere else, I just…” sometimes - when Martin was alone in the archive - he wondered about what Jon did after he left work. “I don’t know what I was expecting.”

“Alright.”

“I’m back in my old- well, it’s not _that_ old, my flat,” Martin went on, filling the silence between them. Now that Prentiss was gone and the archive was basically uninhabitable, there was no good reason _not_ to go home. It was nice not to have to traipse through the office just to use the toilet.

“That’s good.”

“Yeah, it’s- it’s nice.” Martin smiled, “Now you can finally have your room back.”

“It isn’t my room,” Jon corrected him, “It belongs to the archival staff. You have as much right to be there as I do.”

“I suppose.” Martin didn’t want to say what he was thinking, which was that Jon used to make use of the room when he stayed late. After the stroganoff debacle, he didn’t even feel comfortable staying in his office. “I know I’ve thrown off your schedule,” he muttered, without looking up, “You’ve been leaving a lot earlier.”

Jon sighed, coming to a halt next to an old brick building, and he faced Martin. He looked good with short hair. It brought out the sharp angles of his face. “Your stay in the archive was not an inconvenience. Your safety was- is- paramount. Jane Prentiss disrupted my schedule when she decided to attack my staff. Twice.” By that logic, it had nothing to do with Martin.

“Right.” It wasn't what he wanted to say. _I miss talking to you like a person, not like my boss even though I know you’ll say you are my boss whether we’re off work or not. I’m a little in love with you and you almost died so it feels like I should say something, but I think that’s just because I watch a lot of movies. _In real life, it would be selfish to say something like that. Jon had just gone through this awful, traumatic event and he didn’t need Martin mooning over him or making him uncomfortable. He already felt like he was violating professional boundaries after what happened in the hospital room. He wasn’t _looking_ at Jon, he just happened to- well, the hospital gown sort of- god, he felt like such a creep.

“Well?”

Martin blinked up at Jon, who had walked up the steps to the front door of the building. It was then that Martin realised this must’ve been his place. It was nice. And here he was thinking about stuff he shouldn’t be thinking about. “Um…” Martin wondered what he’d missed, and then he remembered, “Oh. Right. I’ll just- I’ll go then?”

“If you like,” Jon replied, the words weighted with consideration, “You could come in for tea.”

“Oh.” Martin stood on the doorstep gawking for two excruciating seconds, until the decision was made for him. A fat drop of water landed on his left cheek, and he reached up to rub it away with one hand. The sky was overcast and heavy. It was starting to rain. He looked back at Jon and smiled again. “Tea would be great. Thanks.”

Jon lived on the second floor of the building, and Martin followed him to the end of the hallway. Opening the door, Jon stepped onto a knotted mat and started to bend down. Martin reached out on impulse, catching him by the crook of the elbow. “What are you doing?”

Jon turned his body to the side to look at Martin. “I am taking off my shoes. What are _you_ doing?”

“Um- sorry,” Martin let go of his arm, “It’s just- you aren’t supposed to bend down after you have eye surgery. Or brain surgery. And you had both so…” he swallowed, his confidence flagging as Jon stared at him, “…maybe… you could let me do that?”

“Martin,” he replied, words tight with unspoken irritation, “If I can put on my own trousers, I can take off my shoes.”

“You probably weren’t supposed to do that either.” There were a lot of things Jon wasn’t supposed to do, and Martin knew this because he’d looked it up: no bending, carrying, pushing, coughing, vomiting, or exercise. He also had to sleep a certain way and be careful of pillows. And no swimming! “It puts extra pressure on your head which is dangerous. You need to let me do this.”

“No.”

“Jon.” Martin couldn’t decide if it was surprising or not that Jon was a terrible patient.

“It’s…” he paused, as if searching for the word, and shook his head, “…demeaning, Martin.”

“It’s not demeaning to _me_ ,” Martin snapped, reminded of the way that Jon decided he was violating Martin’s professional boundaries by eating dinner with him. He didn't get a say in that. “It’s… keeping your head from exploding.”

“What have I said about hyperbole?”

“Jon, I’m not budging on this. So, unless you can do it without bending over…” Martin trailed off as Jon did just that, using his toes to pull the heels of his shoes down, wriggling out of them while standing upright. “You are a very stubborn man,” Martin sighed, watching Jon struggle through the task, swaying without losing his balance. “Has anyone ever told you that?”

“Yes.” Jon did the same thing with his socks, which was surprisingly dexterous of him. In the end, it took twice as long as it would’ve if Jon had let Martin help but he did it. All Martin ended up doing was picking up the shoes to set them on a white rack against the wall at Jon’s direction. Then he took off his own shoes. He kept his socks on and Jon didn’t say anything, so he assumed it was okay. The foyer was clean, floors a dark, shiny hardwood, leading to the living room. There were three tall wooden bookshelves against the wall, a desk by the window, a sofa, and a _really_ nice entertainment system: a big flat-screen television, a projector, media players, and speakers.

Martin followed Jon past a gold quilt hung on the wall – it had beautiful geometric designs in red, blue, and white, perfect lines and triangles - and a large scratching post in the corner, wood wrapped in sisal rope.

“Do you have a cat?”

“No.” Jon caught Martin’s gaze and made a soft hum of acknowledgment, “I catsit occasionally.”

“As, like, a part-time job?”

“Unfortunately not.” Jon sounded genuinely disappointed – and who could blame him? It would probably be a much less stressful job than ‘Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute.’ “My ex has a cat. Sometimes he stays here.”

“Ah.” Martin wondered who ‘he’ was: the ex or the cat? He hoped it was the cat… not that he had any reason to think about who did or did not stay over at Jon’s house. “That’s cool. I like cats.” And dogs. His mum never let him have a pet growing up. His landlord was strict about it too. Martin didn’t mind. He didn’t think it was fair to leave an animal home alone all day, even without the threat of sinister, parasitic nanorobots on the loose.

Jon smiled – or, well, he did that thing where he wasn’t frowning. “Take a seat. I’ll put the kettle on.”

“Oh. Okay.” It was strange to have _Jon_ making tea for _him_ , and Martin was overwhelmed by the choice of where to sit. He was in Jon Sims’ flat. “Just… anywhere?”

“Not the cat tree,” Jon replied with a bemused expression, moving to the kitchen, “Anywhere else is fine.”

Martin ended up sitting at the small round dining table. “You have some interesting art,” he said, peering up at copper plates engraved and painted with landscapes he didn’t recognise. He leaned over the table to peer into the glass case, squinting at an engraving on the pendulum clock by the window, when he heard a _crack!_ followed by a heavy thump. “Jon?”

There was no answer.

Martin jumped up and ran into the kitchen. Jon was standing in front of the sink, the kettle on the counter. “Jon?” he tried again, tentative. “What is it?” Jon’s face was unreadable, but his fists were clenched in front of him. At Martin’s question, he turned his hands over and opened his palms. It was a pair of glasses, broken in half. The lenses were still intact and he wasn’t bleeding, so that was a good sign. “Do you have any glue?”

Jon looked at him, and Martin didn’t think they’d ever stood so close, practically shoulder to shoulder. “Why?”

“So we can put your glasses back together.”

“I don’t need glasses.” Jon’s voice caught on the vowels, and it sounded strained. 

“Well,” Martin shrugged, looking down at Jon’s hands, the way he held onto the pieces, “I still think you look good in them. You can always take the lenses out and keep the frames.”

Jon turned to him. “You think I should wear glasses I don’t need?”

“Why not? People do it all the time,” Martin said, “It’s… you know, a fashion thing. Sasha does it.”

“What?”

“Sasha had laser surgery years ago,” Martin explained, “She doesn’t need glasses, but she likes the way they look. She matches the frames to her clothes. Did you notice that?” Martin had counted four pairs in the time he’d known her: purple (her favourite), teal, yellow, and red. 

“I did not.”

“Well, there you go.”

“And you?” Martin could see the gold in Jon’s irises, his gaze sharp and intent. “Are your glasses a ‘fashion thing’?”

“Nope. They’re prescription.” Laser surgery was covered by NHS so technically Martin could’ve had it done too. He’d asked his mum about it once when he was fourteen. She said it ‘wouldn’t change anything’ and called him vain, selfish. Bad memory. And there was nothing wrong with glasses.

“They… suit you.”

“Oh.” Martin couldn’t breathe, and it felt like someone had reached inside and squeezed his stomach, “Thanks.” Jon nodded, looking down at his hands. Martin looked at them too. They were great hands. “So, do you want me to fix them?”

“No.” Jon shifted to set the pieces on the countertop. There were small indentations in his palms from the metal.

“Do you…” Martin hesitated, “…want to tell me why you broke them?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

Jon reached for the kettle to fill it with water and Martin took the hint, retreading his steps out of the kitchen and back to the table. Jon stayed in the kitchen until the kettle whistled, and Martin listened carefully to the sounds in the kitchen, the soft clink of silverware, the opening and shutting of cabinets. Jon brought out the tea on a copper tray with milk and sugar, though he didn’t take either, and he sat down across from Martin.

It was Earl Grey, stronger than what Martin usually liked, with that slight tannic flavor but not bad. He added a little bit of milk. Jon was watching him, so Martin took a sip and assured him, “It’s good.”

“Not as good as yours, I know.”

Martin smiled – and he didn’t deny it because making tea was one of the few things he was genuinely proud of. For a few minutes, they sat quietly together, and Martin listened to the sound of the rain falling outside the window, in between the rhythmic ticking of the pendulum clock. But Jon fidgeted where he was sitting, and the silence grew awkward. Martin knew he should say something to break the tension, lighten the mood or-

“I didn’t realise the surgery would alter my vision,” Jon murmured, shoulders hunched. “In retrospect, it was absurd to think the Magnus Institute would give me defective implants.” He paused, wrapping both hands around the teacup, “Nevertheless, I am… having difficulty adjusting.”

“I think that’s normal.” Martin didn’t know what else to say, and he spoke through Jon’s wordless scoff, “If you see the world one way your whole life, and suddenly you wake up and it’s different…” he couldn’t imagine what that would be like, especially if he wasn’t expecting it to happen, “…that would be hard for anyone.”

Jon nodded, tapping his thumb against the lip of the cup.

“That doesn’t make you less human, though.” It had been two hours since they talked about this – but it was obviously still bothering Jon. Honestly, it was still bothering _him_. He wished he had come up with a better answer in the hospital. “And-” Martin broke off, trying to organize his thoughts. Debating with Jon – or anyone – was a very new thing that he wasn’t completely comfortable with. When he looked up from his tea, Jon was waiting for him with an expectant look on his scruffy, bandaged face. “People have been using prosthetics-”

“-prostheses.”

“Right. Prostheses- people have had those for hundreds of years. Pirates had peg legs and eye patches in, what, the sixteen hundreds?”

“Pirates.”

“Yeah.”

“Right,” Jon tilted his chin, and Martin blushed. “Eye patches are not prostheses, but the peg leg is a good example. Of course, the history of prosthetics is much older than that. The earliest recorded use of protheses was a big toe belonging to a noblewoman. It was found in Egypt, dated between 950 and 710 B.C.E.”

“See?” Martin swallowed down the giddy surge of fondness – of course Jon would have obscure knowledge of prosthetic toes. And he approved of Martin's example. “That just proves my point, thank you, Jon. Prosthetics- prostheses?- are part of being human.”

Jon looked down for a long moment before speaking. “I see what you are attempting to do,” he said, his voice soft. He didn’t elaborate.

“Is it working?”

“No.” Jon picked up his cup of tea. “But it is appreciated.”

“Okay.” Martin wasn’t sure if he was making things better or worse, so he stopped talking. Instead he sat across from Jon and drank the tea, listening to the distant sound of the rain. He got up to clean the empty cups from the table, frowning down at Jon who covered his cup with one hand. Jon said he would wash it himself. Martin held out his hand and cited their dinner rule, “You made it, so it’s my job to clean up.”

“If that were true, I’d owe you several times over,” Jon replied, “How many times have you made tea?”

The question surprised an embarrassed laugh out of Martin. “I have no idea.”

“And yet we never run out of clean cups.”

Martin relented, backing away from the table with his own cup held high. They both ended up in the kitchen, wasting twice as much water washing separately – and in the sink, no less, instead of using the dishwasher. Martin couldn’t find it in himself to complain, though, not when Jon was standing shoulder to shoulder with him. It was nice, but it hurt – like waking up from a really good dream, feeling it slip away.

“Have you heard of _Honeyland_?”

“Um…” Martin looked at Jon, who was studying the mosaic backsplash above his sink. “No?”

“It’s a documentary about a Macedonian beekeeper.”

“Sounds…interesting.” It wouldn’t be Martin’s first choice for something to watch on a- god, what day of the week was it? “Is it good?”

Jon opened his mouth to respond- but was cut off by a loud knock. He exchanged a puzzled look with Martin before the sound of a woman’s voice filtered through the flat. _“Jon? Are you home?”_ Jon went to the door and Martin followed him, hovering on the edge of the living room.

“Georgie.”

“I got out in the rain for you, Jon Sims. Don’t ever say I don’t love you.” She tugged down the hood of her sweatshirt – it was speckled with water, the words _What the Ghost?_ printed next to a cartoonish blob of a ghost. She toed out of her lace-up boots in the same way that Jon did. Her hair was cut short, curly, but not as coily as Sasha’s hair, when she wore it without braids. One side of her head was shaved and she wore green shorts; the colour matched the laces of her boots. Her eyebrow was pierced, her ears lined with silver and black studs, with dangling horseshoes on both lobes. She looked like the kind of person who was much too cool to look at Martin, and she was _Jon’s friend_.

“I don’t believe I’ve ever said that,” Jon replied, but he was smiling. “You didn’t have to come all this way…”

Georgie set her shoes in the metal rack. “You need to charge your phone,” she said, drawing him into a brief hug before stepping into the flat. “The hospital said you’d already left, so I came by to… check… in on you,” she trailed off mid-sentence when she noticed Martin. “But it looks like I shouldn’t have worried.” She patted Jon on the arm and walked right up to him. “You must be Martin. I’m Georgie.” She stuck out her hand.

“Hi,” Martin said, “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Same,” she replied, “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Um- wait, really?”

“Yes,” Jon joined them, standing next to Georgie. His shoulders curled forward, and he winced. It must have aggravated his wounds- _the ones he caused._ “Martin was kind enough to escort me home… at the insistence of the hospital staff.”

“They weren’t that insistent,” Martin protested, because he didn’t want Georgie to think he wouldn’t have done it otherwise. “I volunteered.”

Georgie smiled at him. “That sounds like you.”

“Erm- thanks?” Martin was still coming around to the idea that Jon talked about him to other people- to his friends.

“Is Martin staying over?”

“Um- I- I don’t-”

“No,” Jon said quickly, cutting off Martin mid-stammer, “He, ah, I invited him in for tea.”

“Right.” Martin agreed, ignoring the stab of disappointment in his gut. Georgie was here now. Jon didn’t need him to stay. “I- I can go if you… if that’s…” if this was a roundabout way of them telling him to leave. It was nice of Jon to make him tea – especially since he didn’t even want Martin to come home with him.

“No, Martin, you’re more than welcome to stay. Right, Jon?”

“Well-” Jon seemed uncomfortable which made _Martin_ uncomfortable. “It’s your decision, of course. I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you-”

“It’s not an inconvenience,” Martin blurted out, “But, I mean, I’m sure you two have a lot to talk about…”

“Not really,” Georgie replied, “Nothing secret. Stay, Martin, at least for a little while. I’m starving- Jon, do you have any snacks?”

“I will make something,” Jon replied, acknowledging Martin with a small smile. Then he followed Georgie into the kitchen. Jon pulled out basmati rice and coconut milk from the cabinets, and the apartment began to smell like the beach. Georgie did most of the talking while Jon prepared the rice, and Martin found out that she wasn’t just a fan of _What the Ghost?_ She was, in fact, the same Georgie who ran the podcast. He’d listened to a few episodes. He enjoyed listening to her debate with Jon on the caliber of her research (or lackthereof). Georgie explained that she also ran social media accounts for her cat, the Admiral, who had his own merchandise and hit one million subscribers on Youtube in April. Later - over bowls of coconut rice - Georgie talked about her favourite videos, and then they watched Jon's documentary on the sofa together.

It was a really nice day. 

* * *

“I like him.” Georgie’s voice was quiet as she stood on the threshold of the flat, shoes in hand.

Jon shifted carefully to peer over his shoulder, where he saw a fraction of Martin’s curly hair from where he slumped on the sofa, head tipped back, mouth agape. He had fallen asleep during the documentary _._ Jon decided not to wake him up, following Georgie to the front door.

“He’d be happy to hear that.”

Georgie stepped out into the corridor. “And I’m glad to know you have someone looking out for you,” she continued, bending over to pull on her boots, “Since you insist on staying at that job.”

“Georgie.”

“You should quit, Jon.”

“I can’t.” Georgie thought his resistance was due to some misplaced sense of obligation to the place that had invested so much into him – perhaps to some degree it was. But it was more a matter of knowing there was nowhere else Jon could go to understand what was happening to him.

“Right.” Jon surmised that he must have looked especially pathetic for Georgie’s disapproving resolve to falter – the frown between her eyes softening as she sighed. “Please take care of yourself. Call me if you need anything.”

“I will. Tell the Admiral I said hello.”

Jon shut the door and returned to the living room, where Martin had barely moved at all from his position on the sofa. He was still wearing his glasses. Seized by a sudden impulse, Jon reached out to pull them off, tugging the temple pieces away from his ears. He folded the glasses and set them on the table.

_They want you to die. They want to see._

Why blind him instead of kill him? _They did not want you to see._ He supposed if that was the goal, it didn’t matter if he was dead or not. What didn’t they want him to see? _In._ That didn’t make sense, Jon thought, frowning down at the sofa without really seeing it. He was thinking of Jane Prentiss. Was he talking to himself? Ah Christ. Jon felt it then, prickling the hairs on the back of his neck, and inside his head, behind his eyes. His gaze jerked away from the sofa and he blinked at the pendulum clock, registering its steady swing and _click_.

Did he want to look at the clock? Jon pressed both hands to his head and squeezed his eyes shut, breathing through his nose.

“Jon?”

 _Stop._ “Mm.”

“You alright?” Martin’s voice was low and raspy, a tenor Jon had never heard before. The sensation of being watched faded and he turned back to Martin, who blinked up at him through bleary eyes, half-mast and drowsy. It occurred to Jon that he shouldn't be standing over Martin.

“Yes,” he said, stepping away. “Go back to sleep.”

“No, no, I should…oh-” he broke off into a yawn, mouth stretching wide, “-go.”

“If that’s what you want,” Jon conceded, “But please don’t leave on my account.”

It was a testament to how exhausted Martin must have been that he didn’t balk at the thought of overstaying his welcome. There were a few token, half-hearted protests before Jon retrieved a quilt and a pillow from the closet. Martin shook his head as he reached out to take them, smiling.

“What is it?”

“If you’d told me I’d be having a sleepover with Jonathan Sims, I… I don’t…” he trailed off into another laugh.

Jon frowned. “This is not a ‘sleepover.’”

“Oh, I know,” Martin replied agreeably, “It’s… I mean, don’t listen to me, Jon. It’s… really nice of you.”

“The bare minimum, I should think,” Jon muttered, sitting down on the other end of the sofa.

“No,” Martin assured him, “It’s not.” For a few minutes, neither of them spoke and Jon tried not to think of anything at all. He was tired and sore – was he tired? Was that what this feeling was? The sound of the clock filled the silence until Martin spoke again. “Georgie is your ex, isn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“When did you meet her?”

“University.”

“She’s very cool.”

Jon glanced at Martin. “And that surprises you?”

“A little bit.” Catching Jon’s expectant gaze, Martin’s own eyes widened, and he backpedaled, “I- um, I just mean- were you- what were you like?”

“At university?” Jon considered the question, “I was not ‘cool’, if that is what you are inquiring.” He met Georgie in a philosophy class during his first year, and over the course of the term they grew to be friends. She often invited him out to places he wouldn’t have otherwise gone, and one day she kissed him over a tin of choccy biscuits.

Martin smiled. “I’m sure you had a lot of other good qualities.”

“You’d have to ask her.” Jon replied, frowning at the thought of it, “But I would prefer if you didn’t. It was a long time ago.”

“Oh,” Martin nodded quickly, “Of course. I wouldn’t- I won’t.”

“Thank you.” Martin had never shared any personal information with Tim or Sasha from their conversations. Jon was sure he would know about it by now if he had. “I do have some photos from that era,” he said suddenly, “Georgie and I went through a Polaroid phase. Would you like to see them?”

Martin brightened. “Yeah. I would love to.”

* * *

**Tuesday 7:35 PM**  
_Come and Go Souvlaki is preparing your order, to be delivered between 8:00 PM and 8:10 PM._

**Tuesday 7:55 PM**  
_Your order is on the way and will arrive between 8:00 PM and 8:10 PM._

Sasha rinsed the cocoa butter off her hands and picked up her phone, walking out of the bathroom. She stopped by the bed to pick up a wrinkled pair of pajama bottoms, pulling them on. They were a Christmas gift from her mum: blue cotton, patterned with fluffy black sheep. Sasha only wore them when she was having a bad day (the last three days). It wasn’t every week her place of work got hacked. She was worried about Tim and Jon, but at least Tim responded to her texts. They talked about quitting their jobs.

Tim once told her that making big decisions while stressed out – or depressed – was a bad idea (at the time, he was trying to convince her not to quit _Game of Thrones_ ). It was good advice that Sasha intended to take, giving herself a week to decide whether to stay with the Institute or not. There was no reason for her to quit while she was on paid leave, and she could use the next few days to follow up on some of her applications.

**Tuesday 8:03 PM**  
_Your Deliveroo driver has arrived._

Sasha tapped on the text bubble to respond and her phone display went black.

DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR.

Words appeared in the corner of the screen, green text that reminded her of the _Ushanka_ game. Sasha tried to turn off her phone – holding down the power button – but the text didn’t disappear. She walked into the living room and found the same message on her laptop and her tablet.

DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR. DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR.

Sasha built separate networks for her devices and home security, put up a firewall, monitored her camera logs, used encrypted signals and two-factor authentication. She was not an easy target for the average hacker – and most of them were lazy – so this was personal.

Sasha held up her phone. If this person had control of her devices, they could probably see her through the cameras. “I have dealt with worse things than you in the past week,” she informed the unchanging display of her phone, “You don’t scare me, and you aren’t as good as I am.” The first thing she needed to do was disconnect her router, boot up her old computer from three years ago, and dig out her hotspot.

 _Taptaptap._ Sasha froze at the sound of someone knocking on her front door. She gritted her teeth against the shiver of fear down her spine and dropped her phone on the sofa. _Taptaptap._ Sasha went to the kitchen and grabbed a steak knife and walked to the front door.

Peering through the peephole she saw a woman with short dark hair and green eyes, in a striped sundress. Sasha took a step back and compared that to the video feed on the wall panel: it offered a wider shot of the hallway, which was empty except for the woman.

“Yes?” Sasha called out through the door.

The woman tilted her head up. “Hi!” she called out cheerfully, “I’m Sarah from Deliveroo. I have your order from Come and Go Souvlaki.” She held up the bag in front of the peephole and Sasha sighed in relief. Right. She completely forgot about that.

“Can you leave it outside the door?”

“Um.” Sarah gave a puzzled look to the door before smiling, “Sure. I can do that. Have a good night.” She set the bag down on the welcome mat and walked away. Sasha watched her go- and then stop. Leaning over the display, Sasha squinted at the girl, standing stock-still at the edge of the screen, stiff as a board. Suddenly, Sarah dropped to the ground and was yanked out of sight without a word. She didn’t even scream.

Sasha opened the door and ran out into the hallway. “Sarah?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for reading and for your feedback, which is always so appreciated. I am sorry for the cliffhanger – this chapter was getting a little long. I hope Sasha's actions feel in-character to you - my reasoning for her decision to open the door was that a) she isn't easily intimidated by ominous messages and b) she, like Jon, tends to walk towards mysterious happenings (i.e. Michael, the Not Them in the tunnels). This feels like a good time to note that I do not have the tag ‘Major Character Death’ on this fic for a reason (which is that I love Sasha) and so you can bet on seeing her again (soon!).


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